Course Settings
Grading Scheme
Navigation Links
Student View
Copying/Importing Content
Additional Settings

What are course settings?

Course settings are only available/visible to the instructor of the course. To access settings, click on "Settings" located on the bottom of the navigation tabs on the left of your course. The information below will give you general information about the different parts of your course settings, but more information will be provided on the tabs on how to actually use these different features.

Things you can do in Settings

There are a number of things in settings that instructors will want to go in and adjust and/or utilize during the semester. These things include:

set the course grading scheme (100-90 = A, 89-80 = B, etc)
change course start and end dates
view which sections are combined in their course
set up course navigation
view course statistics
import content into the course
export content out of the course
view the course as a student (student view)
check (validate) the links in the course

For more information see the following see the following guide - How do I use course settings?

Course Grading Scheme

The course grading scheme is where you set up what points/percentages a certain letter grade represents. For example in some courses the grading scheme is 100-90 = A, 89-80 = B, 79-70 = C, 69-60 = D, and 59-0 = F. If you do not set a grading scheme students will not see a letter grade for any of their assignments or overall course grade; this could be very confusing to students. For more information on this see the following guide - How do I use the grading schemes in a course?

Additional Resources

How do I create a grading scheme for a course?
How do I remove a grading scheme from a course?
How do I delete a grading scheme for a course?

Customizing Course Navigation Links

Course Navigation is a series of links on the left side of your course that help you get to where you want to go inside of a Canvas course. Instructors have access a number of links (the Home link is a constant) and can reorder them and decide which links to make visible/invisible to students; students are never able to see Attendance or Settings. For more information on using navigation links see the following guide - How do I use the Course Navigation Menu as an Instructor?

Below is basic information about each link. Additional information about the links will be provided later in the training.

Announcements - add and view all course announcements
Assignments - gradebook setup
Attendance - take attendance
Chat - chat with students; students can chat with each other
Collaborations - add and view course collaborations
Conferences - schedule and conduct online conferences with your students
Discussions - add and view a list of all course discussions
Files - add and view course files
Grades - course gradebook
Modules - where all course content is contained
Outcomes - add course outcomes and create course rubrics
Pages - add and view course pages
People - view course list and information about what students are doing in your course
Quizzes - add and view a list of all course quizzes and exams
Settings - individual course settings
Syllabus - list of all graded assignments as well as your course syllabus

How to Customize your Navigation Links

To learn how to customize your links see the following guide - How do I reorder and hide Course Navigation links?

Why Customize?

It's important to customize your links to make sure students are provided the best online environment possible. It is best practice to only make links visible that you are using in your course. In addition, it might be confusing to students if you leave the Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes links available, since students might go there instead of Modules and miss important course content and other information.

Recommended Customization

The best bet is to make as few of the links as possible visible to students because this cuts down on confusion and makes navigating your course easier.

In general, it recommended to make the following links VISIBLE to students: Home (default), Modules (or a selected Home Page), Syllabus, & Grades. Additional links that could be added to this includes: People, Announcements, and Attendance (if you plan on using them). Other links should only be added based on the use of those links in your course and/or the set-up of your course.

Student View

Student View allows you to see the course as a student so you can see how your students view assignments, discussions, quizzes, and other areas of Canvas. For additional general information on Student View see the following guide - What is Student View?

Using Student View

To access student view click on the Settings link at the bottom of the Navigation Toolbar and then click on the "Student View" button on the upper right side of the page. After you press Student View you will be brought to your course home page and will be able to navigate through your course as if you were a student. When you are done, press the "Leave Student View" button at the bottom of the page. You can also choose to "Reset Student" which will clear all history for the test student and allow you to start student view again with a clean slate.

For more information see the following guide - How do I enable Student View?

Copying/Importing Content

The following information explains how to import content from one Canvas course into a different Canvas course.

Entire Course Copy

This information explains how to copy all content from one course into another course in Canvas. In general most Instructors copy their entire course from semester to semester.

How do I import content form another Canvas Course

Copying Parts of a Course into Another Course

This information explains how to copy parts of one course into another course in Canvas. For example, if you have a discussion rubric that you'd like to use in all of your courses you could create it in one course and then copy it into your other courses in Canvas.

How do I select specific content as part of a course import?

Additional Settings

There are also course settings that instructors should be careful with, check each semester, and/or not change because it could cause problems with their course.

These settings include:

Course Start and End Date - Instructors can adjust the start date and end date of their course on their own, however courses must follow the Registrar's posted start and end dates. Yet, be aware that your course must remain available through the traditional start and end times. This feature should only be used to open a course early or extend out the end date for students.
Reset Course Content - This will completely clear your course of all content, leaving you with a fresh brand new course. This is permanent. If this button is pushed Distance Learning can NOT recover your course content, so do not click this button on an active course or on a course where you want to retain your content.
Validate links in Content - This will check the links in your course to make sure that the links are functioning and not broken.
Make this course publicly visible - If this box is checked ANYONE online can view your course content, but not student information or submissions. This box should not be checked.
Restrict students from viewing course before start date - If this box is unchecked then students can view your course regardless of the course start date. In general this box should be checked and is checked by default and left check. Please do not uncheck this box.
Restrict students from viewing course after end date - If this box is unchecked then students can view your course after the course end date. Students can't submit any assignments after the course end date or view any quiz results, but they will be able to access all course content and Assignment and Discussion submissions and information. By default this box is unchecked.and left unchecked.
There are other settings that were not covered in this training. If you have questions about what they do or how they work, please contact Distance Learning for assistance.

Reminder!

After reviewing the information from each tab above click on the Next button to continue with the training!