Canvas Course Design Recommendations

Copying Content Into An Empty Course Shell

The Import Course Content feature allows you to copy all or specific course content such as files, assignments, modules, pages, and discussions from previous Canvas courses into new course shells. The import feature does not copy student data from the previous course (grades, discussion responses, etc.).

The Canvas Instructor's guide provides step-by-step instructions for this time-saving feature. See How do I copy content from another Canvas course? Remember to take advantage of the Adjust Events and Dates feature to automatically populate your syllabus with the upcoming dates (as opposed to existing dates).

Note: You only have access to copy content from courses to current or previous courses in which you are enrolled in the role of TA, Faculty or Course Admin.

Copying Content Into a Current and Active Course

Care must be used when copying content into an existing course. Only copy the specific content you need to use in the active course.

And, it is highly recommended to use the Adjust Events and Dates feature to either remove or shift due dates. 

Skipping/bypassing this step risks:

• populating the exisiting Syllabus with the previous course's due dates
• notifying students of all imported content, assignments and quizzes 

When you are ready to copy the specific content into your course, see the link below  and follow the instructions for copying content using the "Copy specific content" option. See How do I copy content from another Canvas course?

Using Modules allows you to provide links to all the course resources in a recommended order. An organized and consistent Modules page will efficiently guide the students to the materials, activities and assignments required to complete each section. In addition, a well-built Modules page is easy to re-use, or modify in case of unintended schedule changes.

To make this change:

1.     Click on the Home tab (left column). Then press the "Choose Home Page" button on the right side of the page.

2.     The select the Course Modules choice and press Save.

Note:  You will not need to show the corresponding Modules link on the left as this would be redundant!  See the section on adjusting the Course Navigation below.

The Syllabus page is connected to The Calendar, Assignments, Quizzes, and The Gradebook.  So, as you add due dates in the Settings of any assignments, quizzes or events, the Assignments Summary table at the bottom of your Syllabus Page will automatically update.

We recommend including:

• Contact information
• Lecture meeting location and times
• Learning Objectives
• Grading Criteria
• Requirements and student responsibilities
  
  

Note: It is not recommended to include dates within the title text of the assignments or events. Set due dates in the settings of each assignment or event. Doing so, will require you to edit each individual title if you choose to reuse the assignment/event in a future course.

See Instructure's guide step-by-step guide on editing a courses Syllabus page in Canvas.

If you have any course material you want the students to be able to access, consider uploading all those files into your new course.  See Instructure’s guide on importing pre-existing, migrated or archived content.

Recommendations for course structure:

• Use a module structure that stays consistent.  This can guide students through their learning as they progress through a module.  See the example module structure below.
• When organizing your content in modules, consider using Text Headers. When you "Add item to Module", choose "Text Header" from the drop-down menu and type in the title of your header.
• Avoid using dates as headers. This makes reusing your Canvas course much easier, and can allow you to change the order of module items if your course schedule needs to be adjusted for any reason
• Use the Indentation feature to visually group related materials. Students can ‘collapse’ these items when they are no longer needed making the Modules much easier to navigate.

Module Structure Example:

• Module Title (don’t use dates)
  • Readings / Supplemental Material (Text Header)
    • Reading 1 (link to file)
    • Reading 2 (link to file)
    • Reading 3 (link to website)
  • Video 1 (link to website)
  • Video 2 (link to website)
  • Activities (Text Header)
    • Forum Discussion (link to discussion)
    • Collaborative project (link to project)Adjusting
  • Assignment (link to assignment)
  • Quiz (link to quiz)

Note: If you want students to move through your content sequentially, consider setting prerequisites. See Instructure's step-by-step guide on setting a prerequisites for a Module.

See Instructure's step-by-step guide on creating modules and creating items within modules.

See Instructure's guide on modifying your course navigation for step-by-step instructions for reordering important links, and hiding (disabling) redundant or unnecessary links. 

A note about recorded Lecture Media

If you are planning on having your lectures recorded, a Lecture Media link pointing to recorded lectures will automatically appear in your navigation a few hours after your first recorded session. To schedule a lecture capture, visit the MedScheduler web site.

In order for course materials (readings, images, spreadsheets) to be accessible by students, they need to uploaded to Canvas and marked as “Published”. Canvas stores these files in the "Files" section, which by default is available to students. In some cases, faculty choose to keep materials used in exams hidden from students until they need to be used. To avoid the unnecessary work and confusion, and to address some exam security concerns, we strongly encourage publishing all uploaded materials and disabling the Files link in the course navigation. Instead, we recommend linking to individual materials  directly from module items, and from Assignments and Quizzes. This prevents students from inadvertently accessing exam materials and also prevents broken links at the time of exams.

See Instructure's step-by-step guide on hiding navigation links

Announcements

Announcements help you reach a large number of students at once for one-way communication.

Use Announcements when you want to:

• Point students to internal and external resources in the form of written content/attachments or even audio/video comments.
• Remind students about upcoming deadlines.
• Announce important events that may be of interest to your students.
• Feed a custom RSS feed related to the topic of the course to your students.

Discussions

Discussions within Canvas provide an integrated system for you and your students to start and contribute to discussion topics. Discussions can also be created as an assignment for grading purposes and can be integrated with the Canvas Gradebook.

Use Discussions to:

• Follow-up on a conversation or questions that began in a face-to-face classroom.
• Test student understanding about a discussion/conversation made in class.
• Allow students to debate over ideas presented in class amongst themselves, while still in a supervised setting.
• Use student input on the discussion boards to enhance and improve the effectiveness of class sessions.

Inbox

Canvas' Inbox tool functions very similar to email but uses Canvas' internal messaging system. It should be used for two-way communication about items related to your course.  Students are alerted to new messages on their dashboard screen upon logging in. They receive conversations via email or texts based on their notification settings.

Use the Inbox to:

• Communicate directly with a single student, student groups or people with designated roles (TA's, Course Administrators).
• Have a private communication between you and a student or student groups. 
• Quickly address messages to groups or selected invididuals in large classes without having to search for their email address.

Adding Event and Due Dates

Events you create on the Calendar will not appear on the Assignments page or in the Gradebook. However, Canvas quiz and assignment due dates automatically show up on both the Canvas calendar and Syllabis page. You can create events with due date times as well as all-day events. See Instructures guide to creating events for the Canvas Calendar

Syncing to Google and Outlook

Students can import their Canvas calendar feed into their devices by following these simple steps in the Instructure Canvas Guide. The calendar feed will contain events and assignments from all of your Canvas calendars.

Scheduling Sign-up Events with the Scheduler

Scheduler is a Calendar tool that creates appointment groups within a course or group. Students can sign up for a time slot within the appointment group. Some appointment time slots may only allow one student to sign up at a time, while others may allow an entire group to sign up.

Instructors can use Scheduler as a virtual sign-up sheet to:

• Create lab appointments
• Schedule TA sessions
• Schedule group meeting times
• Assign presentation times

See Instructures guide to creating events with the Scheduler.

Canvas allows faculty to easily create individual exams, question by question. The Canvas Import Course Content feature, allows faculty to import and reuse exams from previous terms. However, some faculty wish to rewrite exams each term. 

Question Banks are a place to house questions that can be added to quizzes across courses. Using Canvas Question Banks allow you to add to new questions to existing groups of assesment items to make future exams more random and robust. See Instructure's step-by-step guide to creating Question Banks.

Using "Question Groups" allow you to place multiple questions within a section for students to answer. You can choose the number of questions that should be answered from the group and how many points to assign each question. Creating a question group randomizes questions within a quiz.

You can add questions to your question group in several ways:

• Link to a question bank to reference all questions in a question bank
• Add an individual question to create your own questions from scratch
• Find questions to reference specific questions from a question bank
   

Note: If you need your questions to appear in a specific order, do not place quiz questions inside a question group.