Canvas: Use The Calendar To Schedule Office Hours - IT@UMN

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Instructors and TAs can schedule virtual or in-person office hours using the Canvas Calendar.

Communicate about your office hours in several locations:

• Course syllabus
• Course homepage
• Communications sent to students throughout the semester
• Other places visible to students

Include additional ways to reserve time-slots, e.g., via email, for students who are unable to fully access the Canvas Calendar tool. See Provide Inclusive and Accessible Office Hours (link on this page) for more information.

Add Office Hour Appointments for Student Sign-up

Scheduling office hours on the Calendar allows instructors to create slots that students can sign up for. See Add a Scheduler appointment group in a course calendar for specific steps.

Add Open Office Hours

If you prefer to have open office hours where students can drop in at any time, see Add an event to a course calendar. This option allows you to create a repeating event on the Calendar and is not as time-consuming as creating multiple slots.

Note: You can use Zoom links for both types of calendar events to provide virtual office hours. See Zoom: Hold Online Office Hours for more information.

Provide Inclusive and Accessible Office Hours

Here are some guidelines to make your office hours more inclusive and accessible for all students:

• Offer both in-person and online (Zoom call) office hours.
• Look at the variety of office hours you make available:
  • Are they only during one part of the day?
  • Can you offer some evening online office hours, or communicate an option for scheduling meetings by appointment during other times of the week?
• Do NOT rely only on the Canvas Calendar to convey information about your office hours to students.
  • The Canvas Calendar tool is difficult to use with some adaptive technologies. Only the Agenda View within the Calendar is accessible; the Grid view, on by default, is not accessible.
  • If you set up office hours via the Calendar, provide students with instructions for how to turn on the Agenda View. See How do I use the Calendar View as a Student?

Last modified

Changed February 12, 2026

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