Pepperdine Canvas LMS

Pepperdine Canvas will be Pepperdine's new, primary LMS. It will replace Courses/Sakai and will be available for all schools across the University. The majority of academic programs will use Pepperdine Canvas starting Fall 2025.

Digital Campus is the LMS used by the College of Health Science (CHS) and select programs at the Caruso School of Law (CSOL) and Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP).

Instructor Resources

 

Top 10 Solutions for Faculty

1. Publish your class sites so that students can see and access them.
2. Customize Your Courses List to hide older class sites.
3. Import a Course Template to kickstart your class design.
4. Add or hide tools with ease through "Settings" and then "Navigation."
5. Use Announcements to send a message to all students.
6. Add Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes to populate your Gradebook.
7. Add Files and Folders to store and organize your class documents. (Tip: Keep the Files tool hidden from students! Link to your files in Pages or Modules.)
8. Use Pages and Modules to structure and share your class content.
9. Use SpeedGrader to simplify the assessment of student work.
10. Explore New Analytics to assess student engagement and activity.

Faculty Training Videos

The following videos are from our initial pilot and are limited to current Pepperdine University faculty and staff (University login required). 

• Introduction to Canvas LMS for Faculty (57 min)
• Canvas Assignments Basics for Faculty (1 hr, 31 min)
• Canvas New Quizzes Basics for Faculty (1 hr, 32 min)
• Other Canvas Course Setup Topics for Faculty (1 hr, 23 min)
• Learning Canvas (by LinkedIn Learning) (1 hr, 54 min)

Student Resources

 

Top 10 Solutions for Students

1. Are you using the correct Canvas link — Pepperdine Canvas or Digital Campus (2U Programs)? If your program uses Digital Campus, be sure that you are accessing the correct website!
2. Are you setting up your mobile app properly? If your program uses Pepperdine Canvas, search for "Pepperdine." If your program uses Digital Campus, search for "Digital Campus."
3. Can't find a class site? Again, make sure you are accessing the correct website. If on the correct service, please ask your professor if the site is published, or check your "Courses" menu and select "All Courses." You will not see "unpublished" classes on your Dashboard.
4. Video or recording not playing/available? You may need to log into the service with your official Pepperdine account to see the content. Some Zoom recordings, for example, may be limited to official Pepperdine Zoom accounts, not personal Zoom accounts. Please check with your instructor to be sure that permissions are set properly on the content. 
5. Can your professor access your files? Be sure to check which file types your professor requires for any assigned work. Many professors expect Microsoft Word or PDFs and may not be able to view Apple Pages, for example.
6. Zoom Pro: Have you registered your account for Pepperdine Zoom? Are you signed into the Zoom app with Pepperdine SSO?
7. Assignments: Learn how to submit an online assignment.
8. Discussions: Learn how to reply to a discussion.
9. Quizzes: Learn how to take a quiz.
10. Browsers: Use the Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome web browser for the best experience. Occasionally, you may need to clear your browser cache or cookies.