ICON Dashboard Changes
The ICON Dashboard at icon.uiowa.edu will begin a decommissioning process starting May 26, 2026. Users will be redirected to the Canvas dashboard at https://uiowa.instructure.com/ . Content has been moved from the ICON Dashboard (Legacy) to the ICON Global Navigation menu to the left when you log into ICON.
Legacy ICON Dashboard
The Dashboard is the first thing you see when you log in to ICON. It includes a list of courses you are involved with, ICON News and links to the Canvas parts of ICON.
Top Menu Bar
In the black bar at the very top of the ICON Dashboard, there are three drop down menus in.
- My Courses: a list of courses you are enrolled in.
- Quick Links: by default, links to the Office 365, ITS Help Desk, and MyUI. You can add your own quick links under My Links.
- Student Tools: access course evaluations and other student tools.
Gold Menu Bar
Under the top menu, is a gold bar with three links
- Instructors: the number of course sites that you’re enrolled in as an instructor role (instructor-designer or TA role) for the current semester and displays a list of those sites.
- Students: the number of course sites that you’re enrolled in as an student or guest student role for the current semester and displays a list of those sites.
- Canvas: home links to your Canvas homepage in ICON.
My Courses
A list of all active course sites that exist for courses you’re enrolled in for the selected semester. Course sites that are in the ongoing session will also appear. For each course, you will see a link to the main ICON site, and if there is an associated Wiki site, it will be linked as well.
Ongoing Courses
The first part of My Courses is Ongoing Courses, which will show courses that you are enrolled in but that are not tied to a specific semester will appear in this list. For each course, you will see a link to the main ICON site, and if there is an associated Wiki site, it will be linked as well.
Course Updates
To the right of each course, is a box that displays course updates, such as the number of unread content topics, open quizzes, or number of unread discussion messages.
Inactive Courses
Any course sites that your instructor(s) have not yet activated or have chosen not to use will appear beneath your active courses. Whether or not a course site is active and accessible to students is up to each instructor.
User Context Menu
To the top right, in that top black bar, you will find the User Context Menu, that will show up as "Logged in as: [hawkid]" if you click on that you will get a dropdown menu with:
- ICON Home: links to the Dashboard landing page.
- Help and Support: link to ICON Help Documentation.
- Settings: access Notifications, Preferences, Profile, Quick Links, or Clicker Registration.
- Logout: log out of ICON and the Dashboard.
Semester
This drop-down menu allows you to change which semester session is currently selected.
ICON News
On the right side of the ICON Dashboard, is the ICON News feed. Varying news items from ITS and the university will be displayed in ICON News, along with a short description.
Account
- Notifications
- Profile
- Files
- Settings
- ePortfolio (legacy) Canvas decommissioning June 30, 2026.
- Portfolio: Access the new ICON Portfolio tool.
- MyUI: A web-based portal where students can access UI information and records, course websites, and a host of key resources
- Office 365: a place to log into university available office tools.
- Global Announcements: Review ICON announcements that you've dismissed.
- Accessibility Settings: You can toggle on or off Use High Contrast UI and Dyslexia Friendly Font.
Dashboard
Canvas Dashboard features include accessing classes, a to do list, and Global Announcements.
Courses
This lists all of your Courses. You can click All Courses at the top to go to a page where you can mark courses as favorites by clicking the star to the left of them. This only impacts what order courses are displayed on the Courses page.
Groups
This links to groups you are part of in ICON courses.
Calendar
The ICON Calendar lists events, such as due dates associated with courses.
Inbox
The inbox allows you to manage messages and notifications in ICON.
History
History allows you to review your ICON page view history.
SPOT
Student Perceptions of Teaching (SPOT) allow students to give end of semester course feedback.
Help
- Search Canvas Guides
- Ask Your Instructor a Question: a quick way for students to contact instructors through ICON.
- Contact the ITS Help Desk
- ICON Direct Opt Out: Students need to go here before the opt out deadline if they want to opt out of being charged for (and using) ICON Direct Materials.
- TurboVote: a resource on registering to vote in local, state and national elections.
- Privacy Notice
- Nondiscrimination Statement
- Accessibility: Resources for students, faculty and staff for accessing campus accessibility resources, and making things more accessible
- Canvas Release Notes: The latest Canvas updates.