How to get more students to complete course evaluations using Canvas automation

The "Silo" Problem in Course Evaluations 

For many higher education administrators, course evaluations are a season of stress. Whether you are managing the process via manual spreadsheets or wrestling with a legacy evaluation platform that doesn't quite "talk" to your Learning Management System (LMS), the friction is real. 

The challenge is usually twofold. First, there is the administrative complexity: the "spreadsheet wizardry" required to sync enrollments, cross-reference faculty lists, and ensure the right students get the right surveys. Second, and perhaps more frustrating, is the engagement gap. You can build the perfect survey, but if students ignore the email link because it lives outside their daily workflow, the resulting low response rates render the data unreliable for decision-making. 

To solve both sides of this equation—efficiency for the admin and engagement for the student—institutions are increasingly moving toward a unified ecosystem and tools built for the job. By deeply integrating Watermark Course Evaluations & Surveys (CES) with Canvas, institutions can turn a disjointed process into a seamless strategy. 

Here are the top three ways this integration transforms the assessment landscape. 

1. Making Complexity Simple: The Power of User Integrations 

The most immediate benefit of the "better together" partnership between Watermark and Instructure is the removal of manual barriers. In a non-integrated workflow, data often lives on an island. Administrators must manually export data from the LMS, reformat it, and upload it into a survey tool—a process prone to human error and lagging data. 

Watermark CES solves this through robust user and data integrations. By syncing directly with Canvas, the system automates the heavy lifting. Student enrollments, faculty assignments, and course hierarchies update automatically. Did a student drop a course yesterday? The integration knows. Is a course team-taught? The system handles it. 

This "set it and forget it" capability allows you to retire the complex spreadsheets and focus on strategy rather than logistics. 

2. Driving Response Rates: Meeting Students Where They Are 

Low response rates are often a result of inconvenience, not apathy. When evaluation links are buried in emails, they’re easily missed. The Watermark CES integration leverages the Canvas environment to put evaluations directly in the student’s line of sight. 

The integration offers a suite of helpful features administrators can toggle on to drive participation. These include: 

• Embedded LTI Links: Surveys appear naturally within the Course Navigation menu.
• Intelligent Notifications: Pop-ups and "To Do" list items alert students to pending evaluations the moment they log into Canvas.
• Grade Blocking (Optional): For institutions that require high compliance, the integration can even restrict access to grades or course content until the survey is completed or opted out of. 

The impact of these embedded tools is statistically significant. Institutions utilizing these integrated engagement features have seen response rates more than double, often to 70%+. When students can complete feedback without leaving their learning hub, completion becomes the path of least resistance. 

3. Closing the Loop: Immediate Results Distribution 

Data is most valuable when it’s timely. In legacy systems and other systems on the market, there’s often a significant lag between the end of a course and the distribution of reports, often requiring administrators to manually generate and email PDFs to faculty. 

The Canvas-Watermark integration enables immediate results distribution. Once the evaluation period closes and grades are submitted, faculty can access their reports directly from Canvas. This eliminates the waiting game and empowers educators with Instructor Insights—automated and AI-supported analysis that highlights key themes and trends in student feedback. 

By delivering data instantly within the environment faculty use daily, institutions can foster a culture of continuous improvement where feedback leads to real-time adjustments in pedagogy and course design. 

Join the Conversation 

Navigating the complexity of course evaluations doesn't have to be a solo journey. Whether you’re looking to replace another system or modernize a manual process, the transition to an integrated ecosystem is a proven path to higher engagement and better insight into your students’ experience. 

Ready to see these features in action? 

Join us on March 12, 2026, for a live webinar featuring Christopher Casey, Director of Digital Education at University of Michigan – Dearborn, who achieved a 200% jump in survey response rates by using Watermark and Canvas together. We’ll demonstrate the top features Canvas users love and discuss real-world strategies for simplifying course evaluation complexity.