Canvas Tip of the Week (06 January 2020)

TUC Canvas Transition Complete

Did you know that as of Fall 2019 all programs at Touro University California were now using Canvas?

Hello everyone and welcome to the Spring 2020 semester!

As the Fall 2019 semester completed the transition of ALL Touro University California programs to Canvas, it is time to update some of the local policies related to Canvas.

Registration Procedure with Canvas (http://western.touro.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/12/registration-procedure-with-canvas.pdf )

During the first semester of the transition period, the local TUC Canvas team, the Registrar’s office, and representatives from each of the academic units worked with the TCUS Canvas team in New York to develop this registration policy. It is primarily focused on enrollment of faculty and staff. The first step of the procedure remains the same as it has always been. The Registrar adds one primary and four to five additional faculty who are listed in Banner. These individuals will be automatically populated in Canvas as “TEACHERS.” It is recommended that these individual(s) be the teacher(s) of record for the course.

Any additional faculty that needs access to the course for the purposes of creating content, adding assignments, and/or overseeing grades would fall into the second step of the process. In this step, there are two spreadsheets that need to be created and submitted to Michele Jenkins for COM and COP courses or Michael Barbour for CEHS courses. The information and specific format required for both spreadsheets are described in the second step of the policy.

Please note that department chairs, directors, assistant deans, associate deans, and/or deans do not need to be added under either of these steps. These faculty have already been added at the administrative level to the appropriate courses.

Add User or Change User Role in Canvas (http://western.touro.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/12/add-user-or-change-user-role-in-canvas.pdf )

If during the semester there is a need to make additions or changes to the role that a particular faculty, staff, and/or student was assigned in Canvas, these requests should be submitted to Michele Jenkins for COM and COP courses or Michael Barbour for CEHS courses. Each request should include the specific information that is outlined in the policy (e.g., name, T#, semester, CRN, and role). As described in the policy, all requests must be first approved by:

the course coordinator, OR
the program coordinator, department chair, and/or school director, OR
an Associate Dean or Dean.

Evidence of this approval MUST be included in the request when it is submitted. The easiest way to accomplish this is to send an e-mail to one of the individuals listed above making the request for an addition or change in the course, and once the individual has approved it, then forward the entire e-mail chain to Michele or Michael.

In the case of faculty and staff, it is requested that those responsible for the initial enrollment described in the “Registration Procedure with Canvas” be as accurate as possible, as the addition or change of a role in Canvas after the fact is a manual process that has to be completed by the TCUS Canvas team in New York.

Canvas Organization Management Policy (http://western.touro.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/12/canvas-organization-policy.pdf )

Unlike Blackboard, Canvas does not have a function that separates courses and organizations. However, Canvas does allow the administrator to manually create courses at the local level. These locally created courses have the same functions as the courses that are automatically created by Banner (i.e., the courses listed in our course catalogue). This is how we have decided to emulate the same functions that were provided by the organizations in Blackboard. Organizations that are considered curricular or co-curricular can be established as a locally created course. Please note that general development courses or sandboxes do not qualify as organizations, and will only be created for new programs or courses.

In order to establish an organization in Canvas, individuals must complete the Canvas Organization Request Form and send it to Michele Jenkins. If approved, an enrollment file will need to be created – as outlined in the second step of the policy – and then this file should also be sent to Michele Jenkins.

For individuals responsible for clinical or program level organizations, please review the video “How to Manage Organizations in Canvas” (https://youtu.be/aRinvcze3y4 ).

To learn more about these and other TUC Canvas policies, you can view the all of the details on the Center for Innovative Learning and Teaching’s website.
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The main change in the policies described above is that requests related to COM and COP courses in Canvas should now be directed to Michele Jenkins, while requests related to CEHS courses in Canvas will continue to be directed to Michael Barbour.

Please note that all of the Canvas Tips of the Week are archived on the CILT website at https://western.touro.edu/cilt/canvas/#tips

As a reminder, the Canvas team at the Touro College and University Systems level continues to offer webinars on various aspects of Canvas. Webinars that are coming up this and next week include:

January 06, 2020, Monday
11:00am – How to Copy Your Course to the Next Term (to register, click https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jKhgHkouQNm6m91Ip2u3Jw )

January 08, 2020, Wednesday
8:00am – Adding Content to Your Course (to register, click https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MD_GivWtR0SxO3LRJ9lgFg ) )

January 09, 2020, Thursday
8:00am – Canvas General Training Sessions (to register, click https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QMcNxc9zSNqpAzP90LVneQ )

You can access the complete training schedule at https://touro-iits-dept.s3.amazonaws.com/canvas/calendar.html

If you have questions, feel free to contact Michele Jenkins, Jim O’Connor or myself.