Alamo Colleges District

Requesting a Change to Your Canvas Display Name

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Canvas offers users a variety of ways to personalize their account profiles, including adding a profile picture, biography, and links to your personal website, blog, or portfolio. You can even edit the settings for your account which allows you to select your personal pronoun to display next to your name in Canvas. Your profile information can be viewed by all users in your courses as long as your instructor has enabled that feature for the course.

The Alamo Colleges District permits users to list their preferred first name in their Canvas display name.

The Canvas display name is what instructors or other students in your class see in discussions, announcements, group work, and communication through Canvas. Your full legal name will still be associated with your full/sortable names on your Canvas profile, but it will only be seen by instructors for the purposes of attendance, Census reporting, and grading. LMS administrators will also be able to see your full name when they access your account to provide technical support.

Please select your classification from the links below and follow the process for requesting a change to your Canvas display name.

Students

Send an email to [email protected] from your ACES student email and provide us the following information so we may update your Canvas display name:

  • Full legal name as it is currently listed in Banner
  • Banner ID
  • ACES user name
  • Preferred first name to be displayed in Canvas

Requests can take 1-2 business days to process. Changes are immediate, and we will notify you via email when it has gone into effect.

Once the Canvas display name change has been processed, we recommend letting current and future instructors know of these variations to your name by the first day of class. In your message, please indicate that you would like to be addressed by your preferred first name; this will help your instructors make the connection between Canvas and ACES/Banner course rosters for Smart Start, Census, and early alert/grade reporting.

For students seeking to change their legal name or other biographical information on their permanent academic record, please consult your home college's Student Handbook for the respective process. Appropriate documentation will need to be filed with your home college's Enrollment Services/Admissions and Records Office.

Employees

Send an email to [email protected] from your ACES email and provide us the following information so we may update your Canvas display name:

  • Full legal name as it is currently listed in Banner
  • Banner ID
  • ACES user name
  • Preferred first name to be displayed in Canvas

Requests can take 1-2 business days to process. Changes are immediate, and we will notify you via email when it has gone into effect.

For employees seeking to change their legal name or other biographical information on their employee record, please contact the HR Service Center at [email protected] or (210) 485-0799. Appropriate documentation will need to be filed with Human Resources.

To minimize confusion with LMS integrations, District IT allows a user to request a change to their Canvas display name once.

Visit the Canvas Guides for additional information about Canvas profile settings, or contact [email protected] for additional assistance.

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