Canvas Guides – How To

CPH AU20 New Template and How to Use It

| Margaret Murphy

Template cut outs

Hi all,

By now, most of  you know that CPH uses templates in our Canvas courses. By and large, the majority of courses and instructors had been using the template I put in your course 2 years ago. (Except those who went rogue. Don’t think I don’t know who you are. :). Standardization in course appearance and navigation is beneficial for both instructor and student. (Read why here.)

We have recently updated our template again to align more with both Quality Matters standards and other standards set by ODEE as described in their Quality Assurance process: https://keepteaching.osu.edu/.

And because we are really freaking cool, we have also come up with a super-duper process (leveraging Canvas’s Blueprint tool).

 

WHY THIS NEW TEMPLATE AND PROCESS IS AWESOME

All CPH courses should include some standard information such as:

  1. How to get tech help and contact 8Help
  2. How to request accommodations
  3. Information about academic integrity
  4. How to seek support for mental health
  5. How to find resources for writing

This new template includes all of those goodies and more but, as information changes (say the Writing Center moves to a new location) updates can be pushed out to all PUBH Canvas courses with the push of 2 buttons  and we will do all of those updates for you!

 

 

BUT WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE AND HOW CAN I EDIT?

Again, because we love you, we (well…really Christy and Mukta) have actually already gone ahead and made your AU20 course shells. (That’s right. Go to carmen.osu.edu right now and see that they are made. You are welcome.) If they are not already in there, the new template will be in your course by the end of this week (July 24th at 5pm.). Please make sure you watch the videos below for full details.

A few important notes:

  1. Some items from the new template are “locked” and you cannot edit. But only a few.
  2. When you copy over content from Master or other course you don’t loose or override the template; instead you will have objects from both courses. Delete as you wish or just leave your pages, modules, or assignments unpublished what you don’t want students to see.

 

CHECK IT OUT

And because we *love* you, we created some instructional videos:

Home Page: Overview and How to Edit

 

Modules: What’s New and How to Edit

 

 

Pages: What’s New and How to Edit

 

 

 

 

 

Using Canvas Commons

| Margaret Murphy

Canvas Commons

Canvas commons icon

 

You have probably seen this little icon in your Canvas course and wondered what the heck it was:

Canvas Commons is a digital library. Instructors and administrators can share materials they have created to build this library for others to use. You can limit who uses your content – make it available to OSU folks only or all Canvas instructors; you set the parameters. The Commons tool allows you to add content to your course with just a few clicks, rather than having to build learning objects entirely from scratch. Anything you add from the Commons can be edited using the Rich Content Editor.

Commons is a great way for Canvas users to share learning resources with other Canvas users as well as copy learning resources from Commons into their own Canvas courses. Students do not have access to Commons; it is strictly for teachers and administrators.

Why it’s important for the College of Public Health?

As all of you begin to do more teaching in Canvas, we will leverage Commons to share resources with others who are looking for ideas, inspiration and help with creating content in Canvas

The CPH Distance Ed team will be putting sample assignments, quizzes, pages and modules in Commons for you to download!

 

How do I use Commons to get (and share) goodies?

Instructions below but If you just want a quick overview, check out this short video (2:22):

 

 

Finding Stuff with Tags

The easiest way to find objects is to search using tags. Any time the CPH Distance Ed team adds content we will use one (or most) of the following tags:

CPH Public Health College of Public Health
Margaret Murphy Elizabeth Flansburg-Cruz OSU CPH
CPH Distance Ed OSU College of Public Health

 

Great, but how do I actually *do* this thing?

If you want a printable or text resource, start with the Canvas Guide found here https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-16712-4152725288

  1. Open Commons – In Global Navigation, click the Commons link.

Canvas commons icon

 2.   Search for Resources

Commons search bar

A resource in Commons can be a course, module, quiz, assignment, discussion, page, document, video, image, or audio file. Each resource type has a unique icon. Look for these related colors and icons when searching for resources. To find resources in Commons, use the search field [1]. You can search for keywords such as author, institution, or title. This is where tags come in. Use the ones listed above to find CPH resources. You can also search by outcome, consortium, or group.

3. Preview resource and import into course

Click on course title to preview. Remember, you can edit the resources once they are in your course.

Commons preview

In the course details page, you can preview the various learning activities within the course. To preview course content, click a section in the sidebar [1]. Content is listed in the preview area [2]. Each content item displays the content type icon [3] and the published status icon [4]. If applicable, points possible are also shown [5].

To preview a content item, click the item title [6]

To download the file to your computer, click the Import/Download button [7].

 

4. Edit and publish (or ignore. Or delete.)

Now that it’s in your course you can edit, ignore or delete it.

 

 

How can I share my goods with others?

Begin by thinking of how you want to tag your items. Use the tag list above as a guide.

You can share entire courses from the Settings tab in your course .

share course to commoms

You can also share individual items – look for this link in the Edit button of your assignments, quizzes, modules and pages:

share to commons in edit

 

Check out this guide for more details.

 

So…go check out the Commons and find some goodies!!

Welcome to the CPH Teaching and Learning site

| Margaret Murphy
Cunz Art
Cunz Art

Recently we have been blowing your email up with the basics of Canvas course design. Now that you have started to build and are getting comfortable with using Canvas, you have been asking for ideas on how to innovate and inspiration for increasing engagement in your course. We will use this site to post these suggestions and ideas.

 

The beauty of a site is that:

  1. Posts will be archived, tagged and organized (we are still coming up with our system but for now, everything will, at least, be archived and available for retrieval).
  2. You choose to get new posts and updates. Instead of us sending you a million emails a day, you can opt in to subscribe OR just bookmark this site and come back to it when you want. (And you will want to, because it will be awesome!)
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