IN THIS ARTICLE
Step 1: Add the Yellowdig App
Step 2: Create a Yellowdig Graded Assignment
Step 3: LTI-Create your Yellowdig Community
Optional: Turn your Yellowdig Side Navigation Bar into an Assignment Link
Optional: How to enable Yellowdig in your Course's Side Navigation
There are 3 quick steps to set up your Yellowdig Community with Canvas. If you have any questions during setup feel free to reach out to us at clientsuccess@yellowdig.com.
Step 1: Add the Yellowdig App
💡 Client Success Tip
Sometimes your school/organization does this step for you. If Yellowdig has already been configured for your entire institution or department, you can skip this step and start at Create a Yellowdig Graded Assignment. To learn more about pre-installed course tools like Yellowdig, see this guide. Questions? Email clientsuccess@yellowdig.com.
1. Find your LMS Key and Secret, or request it from an administrator from your organization/department. If you do not know who to contact, please reach out to support@yellowdig.com.
2. On your Course page, navigate to Settings → Apps. Then click on the View App Configurations button, followed by the +App button.
Please click here if you're unable to watch the video below.
3. In the Add App pop-up window, choose By URL (not Manual Entry) as your configuration type, and copy-paste the following URL into the "Config URL" field: https://yellowdig-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/xml/new-tab/yd-canvas-engage-hidden-sidebar.xml
💡 This URL hides the "Yellowdig" side navigation link by default. This helps ensure that all your students navigate to Yellowdig through the Assignments link at the start of the course. If at any point during your course you want to enable Yellowdig in the side navigation, see the last section of this article.
4. Fill in the rest of the fields as follows:
5. Finally, click the Submit button.
Step 2: Create a Yellowdig Graded Assignment
This creates a link for students to easily access Yellowdig, as well as a gradebook item.
⚠️CAUTION
Do not create multiple graded assignments. This will create significant grade passback problems for your Community that could be difficult or impossible to reverse. For more information, see our LTI FAQ.
1. Navigate to Assignments and click the +Assignment button. Create only one Assignment for Yellowdig. 2. Give it a Name (e.g., "Yellowdig Conversations"). This will appear as a column name in your Canvas gradebook.
NOTE: If you later add Yellowdig in the course side navigation menu it will appear as "Yellowdig", but the assignment will still be called whatever you chose to name it.
3. Set the Points for Yellowdig in line with your grade breakdown. For example, if Yellowdig is worth 10% of your final course grade, and there are 1000 possible points for the course, allocate 100 points to Yellowdig. If Yellowdig is an ungraded element of your course, allocate 0 points to Yellowdig or select "Do not count this assignment toward the final grade". For more on how grade passback works, see the Knowledge Base article.
4. Select "External Tool" from the Submission Type drop down menu. And click "Find" to select Yellowdig from the list. This will auto-populate the appropriate External Tool URL.
We strongly recommend checking off "Load This Tool in a New Tab". This is to accommodate iOS, Safari, and incognito browser users—for whom opening Yellowdig in an iFrame may be impossible--If you do not check this box, it may be impossible for students to launch into Yellowdig via their preferred browser.
The steps above are summarized below:
5. Click the Save and Publish button.
Step 3: LTI-Create your Yellowdig Community
- Click the Assignment that you just created, which will launch Yellowdig and prompt you to create your Community for the class. Since the first user to access Yellowdig is automatically made the Community Owner, it is important that you access the Assignment first and set up your Community before your students can.
- To establish grade passback, you and each of your students must launch into Yellowdig through the one graded Assignment link that you created. If you have Yellowdig in your course's side navigation, that point of access will not establish grade passback. Be sure to communicate this to your students directly and/or direct them to this help article.
Optional: Turn your Yellowdig Side Navigation link into your Assignment link
⚠️CAUTION
If you use Canvas' Redirect Tool, copying Canvas shells will result in broken or incorrect Yellowdig links. They will need to be updated with each copy. If you are regularly copying Canvas shells for many courses, we suggest you ignore this option or at least be certain that updating the course side navigation is part of your design workflow.
In Canvas, the default course side navigation link to Yellowdig is an external tool link, not a graded assignment link. Because of this, students who launch into Yellowdig only through the default side navigation link will not receive a grade for Yellowdig in their gradebook. It is possible, however, to create a side navigation link that redirects users to the graded assignment link, thereby indirectly forging a grade passback connection. (We are indebted to Lisa Gordis of Barnard College for developing this workaround.)
- Hide the original course side navigation link by going to Settings → Navigation. Then, click the vertical ellipsis icon next to Yellowdig. (Your menu item might have a slightly different name.). Then, click Disable.
- Go to the Assignments page. Right-click your Yellowdig assignment and select "Copy Link Address" (or the equivalent command in Windows/Linux).
- Install the Redirect Tool, an external app developed by Canvas. To do this, go to the Apps tab of the Settings page and search "redirect tool". Click on the box with the arrow icon, and then click +Add App.
- A modal window should now appear. Under Name, insert "Yellowdig". Under URL Redirect, paste the URL that you copied during Step 2. Finally, put a checkmark next to "Show in Course Navigation".
- Click on any link on the left-hand menu. An option for Yellowdig option should now appear in the left-hand menu. Click on Yellowdig, then click "Load Yellowdig in a new window". Students who click this link will successfully activate grade passback for themselves.
Optional: How to enable Yellowdig in the Side Navigation
Go to Settings → Navigation. Enable the "Yellowdig" item, and click the Save button:
Audience: This help article is for Instructors, Designers, and Administrators. Students or Learners cannot access these settings.