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This guide outlines how to manage and customize the navigation menu within your Canvas course site at Florida State University. While the course menu provides a consistent experience for students, instructors have several options to tailor it to their specific course needs.
Course Menu Customization
Available Customizations
Instructors can modify the course navigation menu through the Settings tab within their specific Canvas course.
- Reorder Menu Items: You can change the order in which links appear in the course menu sidebar. This allows you to place the most frequently used tools (like Modules or Announcements) at the top. See Instructure's How do I manage Course Navigation links article on how to drag and drop navigation items.
- Hide Unused Links: If you are not using specific Canvas features (such as "Outcomes"), you can hide these links from student view. This reduces visual clutter and helps students focus on essential course materials. See Instructure's How do I manage Course Navigation links article on how to hide navigation items.
- Disable External Tools: Many integrated third-party tools (like Zoom, Kaltura, or SmarterProctoring) can be enabled or disabled depending on whether they are required for your curriculum.
Pro Tip: Visual Indicators — In the instructor view, links that are hidden from students or contain no content will appear with a "slashed eye" icon. Students will not see these links at all.
Limitations
While the navigation menu is flexible, there are several hard constraints designed to maintain platform stability and a uniform user experience across the university:
- No Renaming: You cannot change the text of the default menu items. For example, the "Simple Syllabus" link cannot be renamed to "Course Schedule."
- No Custom Links: You cannot manually add a new link directly to the sidebar menu (e.g., a link to an external website or a specific PDF). To direct students to external resources, it is recommended to use the Modules or Pages tool.
- Mandatory Items: Certain administrative or system-level links may be locked by the university and cannot be removed or hidden by the instructor.
- Global Navigation: These customizations only apply to the Course menu. The global "outer" sidebar (containing Dashboard, Calendar, Inbox, Commons, etc.) cannot be modified by individual users.
