“Instructors on Canvas Can See a Lot of Your Activity” — College Professor’s PSA to Test Takers

If you're a college student who has to use Canvas in order to take your examinations, you might be interested in what it looks like from the end of an instructor.

A TikToker named Duffy (@mduffy_) who is a college professor shared a viral video detailing what he can see when he uses the application.

This prompted a series of responses from TikTokers, some who offered up ways to prevent your professors from finding out if you navigated away from the Canvas tab mid-test.

Duffy's video begins with a screenshot of a text message conversation with his step-sister. She opens their dialogue with a question regarding Canvas. She wanted to know how much he, as a professor, can see from his end using the Canvas software.

She writes: "Hi if someone is hypothetically taking a test in Canvas can the teacher see when the student clicks out of the exam, even if it isn't proctored?"

Duffy also narrates the video, giving some context into the nature of the video and what his job looks like on his end, using Canvas.

"I'm a professor and my step sister is an undergrad right now. And sometimes she'll text me with specific Canvas questions, like what I can see as the instructor versus the student view."

He remarked that because now is the time when there are a lot of college students who are stressing over the final examinations for the semester, he thought he would show that other young scholars currently in the pursuit of their own higher education knowledge were also probably wondering about Canvas themselves.

According to Duffy, those administering tests can absolutely, positively, see a lot of what their test takers are actively engaging in while they take their exams.

"Since it's finals season I thought I would share that your instructors on Canvas can see a lot of your activity."

Next, his video transitions to a screenshot of a student's activity on Canvas. They can view when someone's session started, specifically when they stop viewing a question's page and when they go back into it.

Duffy went on: "When you are taking a quiz or exam that isn't proctored. So, do with this what you will," Duffy says to his viewers to close out his video.

To the uninitiated, Canvas is an educational tool that is often implemented by Universities to administer digital examinations to students.

The Center for Teaching Innovation defines the application as a "learning management system (LMS) that makes it easy for instructors to manage digital materials distribution."

Furthermore, it can be used for "assignments" along with "course calendar[s], communications, grading, and other aspects of instruction for their courses."

There have been other folks who've also wondered about the extent of the data that professors can see of their students while they're completing their assignments on Canvas, like this Redditor who discussed Canvas in a post uploaded to the r/washu sub.

They asked in their query: "Can professors see when/where you've been on Canvas?"

They also added: "One of my professors claims that he can see when we've been on Canvas and which pages we've been viewing and how long we've been viewing each page. Can he actually see this information, or is he bluffing?"

Several users on the application echoed Duffy's sentiments in their responses, stating that instructors can view and track pretty much all of the activity students engage in on their end.

"Yes. Everything is trackable. What you looked at, for how long, when, how many times, etc.," one person replied.

However, another person said that while a professor can see if students have navigated away from the Canvas web page or tab, they ultimately cannot determine what specific URL they went to.

"I mean they can tell if you've navigated off the quiz/exam page, but there is no way for them to know the url of the page you navigated to," they said.

The same commenter went on to argue that they could say they had a pop-up appear on their web browser during the test, or their internet connection briefly powered out during the exam.

Again, rules such as not being allowed to navigate away from a Canvas page during an examination will only really matter if a professor is dead set against students doing so in the middle of their examination.

And there was another professor who stated that while they can entirely check the factors listed by the Redditor in their post, that they, themselves, aren't gung-ho about looking into this information: "Prof checking in. I can see some of these things but ain’t nobody got time for that."