Announcement / Weekly Tip: Get Your Canvas Course Up and
Dear Ithaca College Instructors,
As a friendly reminder, we will be sharing previously posted Canvas Weekly Tips that include some common workflows and settings to adjust to get your course up and running efficiently.
Please remember that all Published courses will become visible when the semester begins on January 21st, 2024, at 12:00am. If you would like your course to become visible earlier, read the instructions for item 4 below – Adjusting your Course / Term date.
-
How to Use the Course Import Tool to Bring Over Course Materials and Adjust Course Dates
-
How to Hide Grading Totals and Grade Posting Policies from Students Before They Are Ready to View
-
Using Student View to View Your Course as a Student Prior to Publishing
-
How to Adjust Course / Term Date to Control Student Access to Your Course Before the Semester
Use the Course Import Tool to Bring Over Course Materials and Adjust Course Dates
The Course Import Tool is a great way to copy over needed course materials from a previous semester’s Canvas course, as well as to adjust due dates for assignments, quizzes, and more.
Duplicate Entire Course Content:
-
Go to the course shell where you want to copy the content.
-
Click “Settings” in Course Navigation.
-
Click "Import Course Content" in the right-hand sidebar.
-
Select "Copy a Canvas Course" in the Content Type drop-down menu.
-
Choose the course you want to copy content from, using the Search for a course drop-down menu. You can also search by course name or Canvas course code number.
-
Select the "All Content" radio button to import all content, or "Select specific content" for specific items.
-
Check the "Adjust events and due dates" and “Remove Dates” checkboxes.
-
Click the "Import" button. The Current Jobs area will display the status of your import
When importing, you can bulk-update your course dates with the "Adjust Dates" feature.
-
Input the beginning and end dates of your previous and current course. This will apply the number of days between the dates of your previous course to your current course.
-
Use "Substitution Dates" to shift course dates from one day of the week to another if necessary.
-
This feature may require manual adjustments for perfect fit. You can use the Drag-and-Drop feature in Canvas Calendar to quickly adjust dates for assignments, quizzes and other tools.
Clean Up Announcements and Quizzes:
-
Avoid putting dates in the titles of pages or assignments to reduce renaming work when course dates change.
-
Clean up any unnecessary items, such as unused pages or drafts, before duplicating.
Hide Grading Totals and Grade Posting Policies from Students if Applicable
If you utilize the Gradebook or Assignment groups, you may not want students’ grading totals to display until you have adjusted assignments and items in the Gradebook to ensure correct final grade calculation. To control the visibility of students’ final grading totals, visible as a percentage out of 100:
-
Scroll to the bottom of the course navigation menu and click “Settings.”
-
Scroll to the bottom of your course settings and click “More Options.”
-
Uncheck the box “Hide Totals in Student Grades Summary.”
However, generally in Canvas, the Grade Posting Policy can be set at both the course and assignment level. To set this for the entire course:
-
Go to “Grades” in your course navigation.
-
Click the gear icon in the top right to access "Gradebook Settings."
-
Under "Grade Posting Policy," select either "Manually" (to hide grades until you choose to post them) or "Automatically" (to post grades as soon as they are entered).
Use Student View to Test Your Course Before You Publish
To use Student View in Canvas and demo your site as a student before publishing, follow these steps:
-
In many pages in Canvas, you will find the "Student View" button in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
-
Click this button to enter Student View.
Testing Your Course in Student View:
-
Once in Student View, you'll be able to see your course from the perspective of a Test Student.
-
You will only see content that is visible to students (i.e., published modules, files, pages, etc.).
-
In Student View, you cannot access normal instructor settings and editing screens.
-
A pink border around the screen will indicate that you are in Student View.
-
To leave Student View, click the ‘Leave Student View’ button at the bottom right of the screen.
Testing Assignments and Quizzes:
-
You can test quizzes or assignment submissions in Student View.
-
If using New Quizzes, you can use the “Preview” button to take your own quiz without creating a test student submission.
-
After testing, leave Student View to view and grade these “Test Student” submissions as an instructor. They should appear at the bottom of your course roster in the Gradebook under “Test Student”
Adjust Course / Term Date to Control Student Access and Visibility
To adjust your Canvas course dates before the semester begins, allowing your course to be opened earlier if desired, follow these steps:
-
Navigate to Settings > Course Details in your Canvas course.
-
In the 'Participation' dropdown, select “Course.” This allows you to set dates that are unique to your course, rather than using the default term dates.
-
Edit the participation dates to your specifications. If course dates are left blank, students can participate in the course indefinitely. Be cautious with this setting as it means students can submit or re-submit work, participate in discussions, and potentially change work after the term has ended. Courses in a concluded 'read-only' state still allow students to view their old submissions and content without altering or adding data.
-
Scroll down and Save your changes
Restrict or Extend Student Access:
-
If you want to restrict or extend student access either before or after the course participation dates, you can do so in the same Settings > Course Details section.
-
Select “Restrict student access to this course before term start date” and/or “Restrict student access to this course after term end date” if you wish to limit access.
-
Remember, by default, these boxes are unchecked, allowing students to view their past courses in read-only mode.
Good luck in the coming weeks, and we look forward to sharing many more such tips with you in the Spring 2024 Semester!
Tristan Ross, Instructional Designer – Emerging Technologies
for the Center for Instructional Design and Educational Technology