New Courses
Learning & Teaching Podcast Now Available - Episode 031: Learning & Teaching Conference
Canvas New Courses
The Canvas course creation process for 2022-23 will be different from previous years. Instead of courses being released on a specific date, 2022-23 unpublished courses will start to appear from February 2022. If all of your courses haven’t appeared by late April 2022, please contact your School Office to ensure you are listed on the Module Outline Form (MOF). These new courses will appear at the bottom of your Canvas dashboard.
Staff enrolment on Canvas courses will also be different for the 2022-23 academic year. This has previously been a manual process but will now be automated. Any staff member listed on the MOF will be given instructor access in the new Canvas course. Staff not listed on the MOF can be added manually to the Canvas course by the School office.
All courses will have a school approved blueprint applied (either default or bespoke template). No content will be copied across automatically. This is to give you the opportunity to review your current course and decide which content, if any, you would like to reuse in the new course.
If you have any queries about the new course creation process, you can contact LTDS@newcastle.ac.uk.
One of my favourite features of Canvas is just how easy and straightforward it is to use and navigate through its content. I also like how you can customise a course to give it its own unique identity.
Get your Canvas courses ready: checklist
To help you with this new process, you can now book a place on a ‘Getting your Canvas course ready webinar. You can also find answers to questions in our Canvas New Courses FAQs below. If you are creating new content, you will find a number of useful guides to creating course content in the Canvas Orientation course.
Here is a handy checklist to make sure the Canvas course for your module is ready for the new academic year.
1. Prepare your course content
Canvas enables you to Import (Copy) selected, or all, content from one Canvas course to another. This includes Course Announcements, Assignments, Quizzes, Modules, Files, Pages, and Discussions. Follow this Step-by-Step Guide to importing content and watch this short screencast to learn how to import your content.
If you are creating new content, you will find a number of useful guides to creating course content in the Canvas Orientation course.
2. Create your course homepage
The Homepage is the first impression students will have of your course. Create an introductory message or video for your students and use this space to tell them how to navigate your course content and the tools you will use to communicate with them. You can use the course Announcements to send your students a welcome message and update them on important news and activities.
3. Design the course flow
You could design your content using a weekly or topic structure depending on which is most appropriate for your module. Further guidance about structuring modules can be found in the Canvas Orientation course.
4. Ready your Reading List
The reading lists are imported automatically from the library reading list system. If you have created a reading list with the Library, this will automatically be imported into Canvas.
If your course is a parent-child course (where more than one module is accessing the course) you may need to contact the Library to ensure the reading list is imported successfully.
5. Check the Canvas Baseline
When developing your Canvas course, ensure that your course complies with the University Canvas Baseline. This sets out the minimum core requirements on all University modules within Canvas.
6. Ensure that content is accessible for all students
When creating content for your new 2021-22 courses, please follow our guidance on accessibility to ensure your content is able to be accessed by all learners. Use the Canvas accessibility features, and Ally reporting to check the content within your course.
7. View your course as a student
The Student View feature will give you a student’s perspective of your course. Please note this feature won’t display third party integrations, e.g. Library Reading List, ReCap and Turnitin, but will give you a useful insight into how students see your course content.
8. Publish your course!
Once you have reviewed your content and structure, publish your course so that your students can access and interact with the content. Remember individual items e.g. Page, Module or Assignment will also need to be published in your course.
FIND OUT MORE
Support and additional guidance
Canvas Tier 1 Support is available 24/7.
A short webinar session outlining the process and demonstrating how to copy/import content.
Regular drop-in sessions where staff can discuss any Digital Education issues they are experiencing, including issues relating to the new courses in Canvas.
Canvas courses for 2022-23 have been created and are now available for you to edit. You can access them in the Unpublished area of your dashboard.
Colleagues with access to 2021/22 course will have same role in the 2022/23 course.
If you need to be enrolled on a course, firstly check all of the courses you have access to in the Courses area of the menu. If you can’t see the course in your ‘All Courses’ list then any colleague named on the MOF (or a PS colleague with Canvas admin privileges) can enrol you on the course.
Canvas Courses will need to be updated and published before students start their course. The courses are now available so you can work on your new Canvas courses at the time that works for you. You can publish your course before the students are enrolled if you wish to.
Registered students will be enrolled on their Canvas courses from the w/c 6 September 2021. Once enrolled they will be able to access published courses, so remember to publish your course.
No content will be copied across automatically, so you have the option of starting afresh, copying over some of the content from the previous year or copying all the content across.
By providing you with empty courses, we hope content will not accumulate in the same way as in Blackboard. You now have the opportunity to review your course and choose which content, if any, you would like to reuse in the new course.
When importing or copying over assignments they are placed in an assignment group called Imported Assignments. However, assignments can be moved into other assignment groups as necessary.
ReCap content is not included in the import process. Please note, if you have ReCap recordings added as a module item or embedded in a page, these will be linked to the previous years’ content that this year's students will not be able to access.
To reuse ReCap recordings from previous years you should create a copy of the existing recording(s), move the copies to the folder for 2023/24 and recreate the links within modules.
- To make copies of recordings follow this guide.
- To add a link as a module item or embed in a page follow this guide.
Please note, to do this you must be the creator of the original recording (or have permission from them) and be a teacher on both courses.