In Canvas you can add contact methods to receive notifications. Contact methods allow you to select how you want to be notified when various events occur within a course. Notifications are applied to all courses in Canvas. Canvas supports notification through email, SMS text message, and Twitter.

It is important to note that each individual user controls the notifications for their account. Therefore, each individual student may have different notification settings for the various features in Canvas. If there is a feature you wish students to receive notifications from right away (for instance, if you plan to use announcements regularly) you may wish to ask students to check that their notification settings for announcements are set to "right away".

For more information about notification settings, view the video below.

Setting Contact Methods and Notification Preferences

In Global Navigation, click the Account link [1], then click the Settings link [2].

In the Ways to Contact sidebar, your account displays the @washcoll.edu email associated with your account. However, if you want to add an additional email address, click the Add Email Address link [1]. If you want to add SMS text messages as a contact method, click the Add Contact Method link [3].

Once you add contact methods, you can set your own Notification Preferences to select how often you want to be notified of course events.

In Global Navigation, click the Account link [1], then click the Notifications link [2]

Each notification is set to a default preference. To change a notification for a contact method, locate the notification and click the icon for your preferred delivery type.

To receive a notification right away, click the Checkmark icon [1]. These notifications may be delayed by up to one hour in case an instructor makes additional changes, which prevents you from being spammed by multiple notifications in a short amount of time.

To receive a daily notification, click the Clock icon [2].

To receive a weekly notification, click the Calendar icon [3]. The date and time of your weekly notifications are posted at the bottom of the notifications page.

If you do not want to receive a notification, click the Remove icon [4].

Notes:

Each set notification preference will automatically apply to all of your courses. They cannot be set individually.
Twitter and SMS notification preferences do not support daily summary or weekly summary options.
Unregistered contact methods will appear in notification preferences but will not receive notifications until you confirm the registration.

More information about contact methods and notification preferences can be found here:

How do I add contact methods to receive Canvas notifications as an instructor?
How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as an instructor?
How do I add a text (SMS) contact method in Canvas as an instructor?