Getting Started: TopHat for Instructors

In the window that appears, click the blue Authorize Top Hat with your LMS button to give Top Hat permission to authenticate with your Learning Management System (LMS), in your case Canvas.

Log in to your Canvas Learning Management System on the screen provided (note: if you are already logged into Canvas in the same browser you may not be provided with this screen and will be logged in automatically).

Once your Top Hat account has been successfully authenticated with your Canvas account you will be provided with a list of the Canvas courses that you are enrolled as an instructor. If you do not see the intended course in the list, ensure that you are enrolled in the Canvas course as the instructor and that you have published (made public/available) your course in Canvas. Select the course and then click the blue Next – Import Students button.

If you are teaching multiple courses using Top Hat you will want to follow the above steps to authenticate each of your Top Hat courses with its corresponding Canvas course.

Inviting Students to Join your Top Hat Course
When your Canvas course roster has been imported into Top Hat you will be provided with the following message and clicking the blue Go to Student Manager button will take you to your Top Hat course’s Student Manager where you can invite your students to join your Top Hat course!

You will arrive on the Enrolled tab of your course Student Manager which will include a list of any students that already have a Top Hat account associated with the email address in your Canvas system. These students will be auto-enrolled in your Top Hat course.

To invite the remaining students to create Top Hat accounts and enroll in your Top Hat course simply click Pending in the upper left corner, and then click the blue Email all button on the right to send invitations to this list of students.

As a best practice, we recommend instructing your students to check their university email address for the invitation and click on the unique link provided to them within the email invitation. This is important as it will help ensure that there are no errors in their account details which in turn ensures that their grade data is successfully transmitted between the two platforms.

As revised rosters become available to you or once the add/drop period is over, simply re-sync your Top Hat course with your Canvas course by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right hand corner and select Course Settings. Select LMS Integration & Sync from the left menu and click on the blue Run LMS sync button.

This will pull new student email addresses into your pending students list (or enrolled list if they already have Top Hat accounts!), and you simply need to once again click the blue Email all button on the pending students tab within your course student manager. Have yet another revised roster? Not to worry, this process can be repeated for as many roster revisions as necessary! You may also choose to Sync roster only if you do not wish to import any Top Hat grades into your LMS.

Syncing Grades
Once your Top Hat and Canvas courses are successfully synced you can easily transfer student grade data from the Top Hat gradebook to your Canvas grade center. The syncing of the two platforms is a deliberate action and does not occur automatically. Most professors choose to sync regularly to ensure the students’ grade in Canvas is up to date with the inclusion of their Top Hat components.

You can initiate the syncing process by either clicking on the LMS Sync button in the upper right hand corner of your course gradebook, or accessing your course settings by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right hand corner of your course content page, and then select LMS Integration & Sync from the left menu.

OR

You can customize your sync by clicking on the blue Edit associated with each option in the Sync Configurations box.

1) Grade Export Options
The first sync configuration option is whether how you want to organize your exported grades.

Once synced, accessing your Grades Center in Canvas will show columns titled with the naming convention TH-[Folder Name] where Folder Name reflects your folder titles in Top Hat.

Once you have identified this option as your choice, click Next and select the folders you would like to sync with your Canvas course and then click Save.

Next time you want to sync your grades you can simply click Edit next to the option Update Folder Selections to add additional folders to your sync as you wish.

Once synced, accessing your Grades Center in Canvas will show columns titled with the naming convention TH-[Folder Name] where Folder Name reflects your folder titles in Top Hat.

2) Attendance Options
The second option available to you is whether or not you want to include students’ attendance scores in your sync with Canvas. Upon syncing, this will create a column in your Canvas gradebook with your students’ cumulative attendance grades, either as a percentage or points depending on how you align your settings below.

3) Value Options
You can decide whether or not you would like your grades transferred as a percentage or as points.

4) Roster Options
Click to edit the final option if, upon syncing, you want to remove students from Top Hat that do not match your LMS roster. After clicking edit, choose Remove students from my course who disenroll from the LMS.

Syncing Your Grades
Clicking the blue Run LMS sync button will pass students’ grades from your Top Hat course to your Canvas course. Accessing your Grades Center in Canvas will show columns as per your sync configuration choices.

Next time you want to sync your grades, simply return to this page within your course settings and click the blue Run LMS sync button again. You don’t need to adjust your sync configuration settings, but you’re welcome to change these as you desire throughout the semester.

If you want to disconnect the LMS sync or clear information from either system, you have the ability to do so. Take a look at this article for more information: Professor: Disconnect Learning Management System (LMS).

Support
Should you require further assistance with Top Hat, our Support Team is here to help! You can contact us directly by way of email (support@tophat.com), the Contact Support button on this page, or calling us at 1-888-663-5491.