Investing time in the proper setting of the course room should reduce stress for all users, as organizing the content in a systematic and logical way increases orientation and reduces inquiries or misunderstandings. As a course coordinator, there are a few things to consider before publishing a course room to students. How well these apply (or whether or not you agree with them) may differ between teachers, courses, subjects and programmes.

Update the home page
Double check the course menu items
Set up your modules chronologically
Rename files to make them more descriptive
Publish content
Remove old or unused assignments
Double check due dates for assignments
Present the assignments clearly
Double check the assignment settings for points, grades and rubrics
Set grade posting policy to manual for regular assignments
Set grade posting policy to automatic for auto graded quizzes
Double check student groups (and group assignments)
Set up a Q&A discussion to collect student questions
Validate links
Check your course room in the Canvas mobile app

Update the home page

If you are using the course template, be sure to update the header image, welcome message and staff information as you see fit. You can also remove any links not needed and of course add new ones.

Consider a change

Screenshot of the default home page from the course template.

In the course template, Announcements, People, Modules and Grades are enabled by default. If your course requires other setups, make sure to enable necessary menu items from Settings and then the Navigation tab.

If you are not using the course template, be sure to disable any menu items not needed. A reduced number of menu items simplifies the navigation for students.

Set up your modules chronologically

It is wise to have modules and module items setup chronologically from top to bottom. That way a student can easily progress through the course content and minimize modules when needed. If multiple course topics are active simultaneously, this is of course tricky to achieve.

Consider a change

Screenshot of a module setup based on content types.

Rename files to make them more descriptive

Edit any file (or item) names that are not descriptive enough.

Consider a change

List of file names with number increment only.

Publish content

Forgetting to publish content is common. Have a second look at your modules and all contents in each module to double check that the correct items are indeed published. Even though it's easy to publish something as soon as one realizes that it is unpublished, it is best to have it correct from the start to avoid student confusion.

Screenshot showing the publish button for a module item.

Remove old or unused assignments

Have a look at the assignments collection in your course. Even though an assignment has not been added to a module, it will still show up on a students' grades pages it is published. This is somewhat common when a course has been copied from previous year or semester. After copying and updating, remove any assignment that is not needed. This is also good for you as a teacher, since your grade book won't be as cluttered.

Double check due dates for assignments

Make sure that all due dates in Canvas are in line with your course plan. Forgetting to update due dates after course import is easy. Go to Assignments, click the three dots at the top right and then Edit Assignment Dates to be able to edit all due dates on a single page.

Screenshot of page for bulk editing assignment due dates.

Present the assignments clearly

Have the instructions as part of the actual assignment and not as a separate document available only in modules (i.e. outside of the assignment context). Instructions can be entered in the assignment description. If the instructions for example contain advanced formatting/markup, templates or data sheets not fit for the content editor in Canvas, they can be attached as documents/files in the assignment description instead.

The assignment object in Canvas can preferably be a one stop-shop for students and not just the place to submit a document.

Consider a change

A screenshot showing an assignment split up in an instructions pdf and an assignment object used only for submission.

Double check the assignment settings for points, grades and rubrics

Double check your grading settings for each assignment. Not selecting the intended grading scheme is a common mistake. If you are using points based rubrics for grading, make sure to check the box for the setting "Use this rubric for assignment grading" when creating/editing your rubric.

Set grade posting policy to manual for regular assignments

Go to Grades and double check that the assignments for which you would like to post grades manually display the text MANUAL in their column header. If not, click the three dots on the column header and then Grade posting policy.

Screenshot showing three assignments with manual grade posting policy.

Set grade posting policy to automatic for auto graded quizzes

Even though the quiz settings are set to show results to students automatically, their score in the grade book still adhere to the grade posting policy. If a quiz is fully auto-graded it is wise to have grades posted automatically. Go to Grades and double check that the columns with your auto-graded quizzes don't have MANUAL in their header. If so, change to automatic posting by clicking the three dots on the column header and then Grade posting policy.

Consider a change

Screenshot of two quizzes with grade posting policy set to manual. Avoid this if quizzes are auto-graded.

Double check student groups (and group assignments)

Make sure that any student groups you can prepare before the course are setup correctly. Especially for group assignments (i.e. is the correct group set selected?). It's always a good idea to have an extra look at groups and group assignment settings if any assignment were imported from previous course.

Set up a Q&A discussion to collect student questions

Students most likely ask questions during your course. If any question is relevant for all students it's good to have a place to gather them all - a Q&A section. A discussion in Canvas is particularly useful for this. Then students can reply to the Q&A discussion with their question and then the teacher replies to the student with an answer. Everyone in the course can then see both questions and answers and one can also choose to subscribe to the discussions to get notifications upon new replies.

Screenshot showing an example of a Q&A discussion.

If you are using self sign up-groups, don't forget to turn that setting off before submission of assignments.

Validate links

Use the tool for checking invalid links. Go to Settings in the course menu and then Validate Links in Content on the right side. Visit and edit any resource listed to correct the errors.

Check your course room in the Canvas mobile app

During autumn 2021 and spring 2022, ~75% of JU students used the mobile app on a regular basis when accessing Canvas. It is therefore good to make sure that your course content looks OK on a mobile and not only in the desktop browser.

In the teacher app you are able to use the student view feature for this purpose (requires installation of the student app also).

Update the home page

Recommended

Consider a change

Double check the course menu items

Set up your modules chronologically

Recommended

Consider a change

Rename files to make them more descriptive

Recommended

Consider a change

Publish content

Remove old or unused assignments

Double check due dates for assignments

Present the assignments clearly

Recommended

Consider a change

Double check the assignment settings for points, grades and rubrics

Set grade posting policy to manual for regular assignments

Set grade posting policy to automatic for auto graded quizzes

Recommended

Consider a change

Double check student groups (and group assignments)

Set up a Q&A discussion to collect student questions

Validate links

Check your course room in the Canvas mobile app