Modules are a Path in a Canvas Course

There are two ways to build content in Modules:

  1. add activities, pages, and links directly in the Modules area, or
  2. upload files and build activities and pages first, and then create links to those items from the Modules area.

There's an important distinction to make about Canvas Modules.

Modules provide a path through content, but the content is not actually stored in the modules. When you create a page, assignment, quiz, etc., that information is stored in the pages, assignments, or quizzes areas. What you see in the modules are links to those items.

For instance, if you create a new discussion, it is automatically placed in the Discussions section of your course. (That's the one you access by clicking Discussions in the course navigation.) If you create the discussion from the Modules section, it is still placed in Discussions. What you see in the Modules area is only a link to the discussion. 

PRO TIP: It's important to remember that if you remove something from the modules, such as a quiz, it still exists in the quizzes area. You must unpublish it if you don't want students to have access to it.

A big benefit of this is that you can link to a single item from multiple modules. For example, let's say you've organized your modules by week, and you want to include a page that explains the final assignment. You can link to that from the week 4 module where you first introduce the final assignment. Then you can link to it again from the week 9 module, to remind students the due date is coming up. And, you can include it in the final module when the assignment is actually due. If you want to make a change to the page, click Pages in the left menu and make the change. That's all you need to do because all of the modules link to that single page.

PRO TIP: Because of this, each page, discussion, assignment, etc. must have a unique name. If you want to have a separate discussion in each module for students to reflect on that week's activities, you must name them differently, such as Week 1 Reflection, Week 2 Reflection, etc. You cannot have two discussions named Reflection.