Need to get your course up in a hurry?

For those of you short on time, maybe because you are a part-time or full-time faculty new to Penn State Altoona, you might need to get your course up in a hurry. Please watch the videos (about 30 minutes of videos to get started) below to accomplish what is needed to get started.

Step 1: Upload your files and edit your syllabus tab

In this first video, I take you step-by-step through the process of uploading your syllabus to your Files and embedding that document from your Course Documents into the Syllabus tab. (Time: 7:02) Please note that Files automatically publishes all uploaded files. If there are files you wish to remain unpublished, you will have to unpublish them after upload (ex. Answer keys for exams).

Step 2: Take care of your Course Navigation, Settings, and Homepage

In this second video, we walk you step-by-step through updating your course navigation, settings (start date, end date, grading scheme), and homepage, as well as publishing your course. (Time: 11:03)

Step 3: Create Assignment Groups and build your assignments

In this third and final video, we walk you step-by-step through creating each needed assignment. Building the assignments will populate the Syllabus Course Summary, gradebook, and calendar automatically. (Time: 12:41) Not discussed in the video, but of possible interest, is how to construct online quizzes and discussions. Those videos can be found on the Building a Course in Canvas page.

Step 4: Publish your Course

If you’ve followed these instructions, you have set your needed course settings, adjusted your navigation, set your homepage, uploaded and linked to your syllabus, built the needed assignments (which will then populate the gradebook, calendar, and Syllabus course summary), and shared the needed files.

From your course homepage, click Publish when you’re ready to allow students viewing access. Also make sure all assignments and files that you’d like students to see are also published, while others that should be hidden from students are unpublished.

Step 5: Keep Learning

The previous steps get the basics into the course and have you equipped with a working course, but you still need to know how Canvas works, especially account settings, the inbox, the calendar, and gradebook functionality.

1. Start with the videos associated with Getting Started with Canvas.These videos discuss the items found in the user Dashboard and in the Global Navigation Menu (the gray vertical strip on the left side of Canvas). It is recommended that you watch each of these videos as some ideas are not intuitively found during independent exploration.

   2. Then move on to the videos associated with Grading in Canvas.These videos focus on topics related to building rubrics and using the Canvas course gradebook or SpeedGrader. It also discusses how students view and use the various views of the gradebook, including What-If Grades.

   3. Finally, it is strongly recommended that you create a Master Course for each course you are teaching. You will request each Master Course from your Dashboard. Once a Master Course has been created for you, copy the contents of your live section (from Step 1) into its corresponding Master Course for safe keeping and for copying to each semester later. Instructions for copying sections in Canvas can be found on the Copy Sections in Canvas Videos page.