Tips for Canvas Courses

Below are tips and recommendations that TLi often shares with faculty during consultations, impromptu chats, and emails.

Canvas Settings

• When copying courses between semesters:
  • use the “Select Specific Content” option, if you have previously used Zoom within Canvas so you can uncheck “Calendar Events” when selecting the content to copy over.
    • Past Zoom IDs should not be carried over.
    • If kept, each event will have to be manually deleted from the course calendar.
  • be sure to check the “Remove dates” option. There is nothing more confusing for students than to see dates that are months or even a year. It’s easy to forget about updating dates when rushing to publish a course, so it’s easiest to remove them during the Course copy process to increase usability and decrease confusion for students.
• When copying content within the same semester,
  • Remove dates if different between sections for the same reasons as mentioned above.
  • Keep if date and time are the same as the other section(s) (i.e., two sections have been merged and you’ve chosen to use the same due dates and availability dates for all students).

Canvas Features

• Did you know that you can copy an individual item you created to another one of your courses using the “Copy to” feature within Canvas? You’ll see it listed on the menu when you click the more options button (three stacked dots).
  • Announcement “Copy to” guide
  • Assignment “Copy to” guide
  • Discussion “Copy to” guide
  • Module “Copy to” guide
  • Page “Copy to” guide
  • Quiz “Copy to” guide

Note: this tool won’t be helpful if you teach the same course each semester and the names are the same. If so, it would be easier to use the Course Copy function instead.

• Have you created an item (e.g., Assignment, Page, Quiz) that you’d like to share with a colleague? The easiest option is the “Send to” feature within Canvas. The recipient(s) will see the content in the “Shared Content” area of their Canvas Account and can choose to Preview, Import, or Delete the item from the list of shared content.

Course Organization

• Files
  • Create folders to organize your content, especially if you have Course readings.
    • When your files are categorized, it helps TLi provide you support more efficiently because it helps us pinpoint the location. As you know there are usually lots of files in a course and the default alphabetized list can prove challenging to skim through during a consult or when we’re troubleshooting an issue.
  • Remove duplicate files (i.e., documents and images) to reduce the likelihood of linking to the wrong version and it improves your ALLY course score by increasing the overall accessibility.
• Syllabus
  • Do not copy and paste the entire body of your Syllabus anywhere in Canvas (i.e. Syllabus area or Homepage)
  • It is best to hyperlink text to a file. Ideally, a Google Doc; it’s easier to update + no versions to keep track of.
    • Consider the following examples: (The “hyperlinked portion” below is highlighted and bracketed by asterisks (*)).
      • Before the start of the course, please read through the *syllabus*.
      • Be sure to read and refer to the *course syllabus* throughout the semester.
      • You can add/create a Syllabus button to hyperlink but be sure it has appropriate Alt-Text (includes the button text and function).
      • *Math 123 Fall 2021 Syllabus* is better than copying and pasting the full URL.