Start of the Semester Checklist

To make sure your Canvas course(s) are ready on the first day of class, here are things you should double check! For more information about the items, click on the provided links!

Course Specific Reminders

• Publish your course Links to an external site. - Students can't access a course until the Instructor publishes it. Even if it's the first day of class students will not be able to access a course that isn't published. Publishing your course does not mean all of your course content is published. You will still need to make sure all Modules and content items are published also!

• Check your course start date - When your course is created the course start and end dates are automatically populated. In most cases these dates are correct, but it's always a good idea to double-check them and change them if needed. Instructors have the ability to manually adjust their course start and end dates on their own, so feel free to open your course early if you want!
  
• Check the links in your course Links to an external site. - Make sure all the different external links in your course are functioning by running the "Validate Links" tool. This tool searches through course content and returns invalid or unresponsive external links in both published and unpublished content.

• Set a Grading Scheme - If you don’t set a grading scheme, students will only see their percent grade; they will not see a letter grade.
• Gradebook set-up - Double check that your gradebook is set-up correctly. This is especially true for extra credit. 
• Automatic Zero in the Gradebook for late Assignments Links to an external site. - To make it easier to ensure a zero gets entered for missing assignments, the Canvas gradebook has a late policy you can set up so students who miss an assignment due date gets a zero in the gradebook. This zero can be updated/changed if the student submits and you grade the assignment.
• Check assignment due dates and points - You can do this in a number of places, but the best way is through the Syllabus page (under Course Summary) or Assignments page - Remember, you can change all of your assignment due dates in bulk Links to an external site.! 
• Publish your Assignments - Make sure all of your assignments, discussions, quizzes, etc., have been published (Draft State), otherwise your students will not have access to them. Unpublished assignments, quizzes, discussions, etc. will not be not visible to students, will not show up in the Gradebook, and you will not be able to enter grades for them. Publishing your course does not publish your assignments.

• Adjust your Global Discussion Settings - If you are using Discussion Forums there is a good chance you do NOT want your students to be able to edit or delete their discussion posts or be able to start their own discussion forum (not post, forum!). In addition, you may want your students to be able to attach documents or pictures to their discussion posts.

• Remove unnecessary Navigational Links - Navigational links are the links on the left side of your course page. If you leave too many of them visible to your students, you run the risk of students becoming confused, or skipping your course content from the Modules and going straight to their quizzes or discussions.

• Add Lock dates to individual Modules - You might want to edit each module so it can be locked until a certain date. This allows students to have access to the module they are currently working on and not all of them at once. Locking Modules does not “hide” them or their content.
• Publish/Unpublish Modules and content - You can “hide” Modules and other content from students by clicking the “Publish/Unpublish” cloud which appears to the right of each Module and content item (gray is “unpublished”, green with a white checkmark is “published”). Even if content items are “published”, students will not be able to see those items if the Module they are in is “unpublished.”
• Course overview/student view - Do a once-through in Student View. Does everything make sense and seem easy to find/understand? Do things look the way you want them to look?

General Canvas Reminders

• Add a profile picture - Add a picture of yourself or something that represents you to your Canvas profile.Then, when you post something in Canvas, the picture will show up to the students!

• Course Card Images - Remember, you can personalize your course card by adding an image of your choice! If you added a course card image and are seeing a "color overlay" - so color over the image - you can turn this off by going to your Canvas Dashboard, clicking the gear icon in the right corner, and uncheck "Color Overlay." 
• Canvas Notifications for Instructors Links to an external site. - It is highly recommended that you go in and adjust your Canvas notifications. Specifically the notification that allows you to be "notified right away" when a student makes a "submission comment" (student comments on an assignment) and "conversation message" (someone messages you in Canvas).
• Check to see if your students have completed the Canvas Orientation! You can check this by going to the People page of your course and looking at whether they have the course section after their name or if it says "Need to complete Orientation." If it says they need to complete the Orientation, then they still need to complete the Orientation and will NOT be able to access their courses until it's finished.

Student Reminders

• Notification settings for students Links to an external site. - It is also recommended that you talk with your students about them setting their notification settings so that they are notified right away when you message them in Canvas, comment on their assignments, grades are entered, and other features that might be important for your course.  
• Mandatory Student Orientation - All students using Canvas for a course must complete the Canvas Student Orientation. This includes students in traditional (enhanced), hybrid, and online courses. Students only need to complete the training one time, but until they complete the training they will not have access to any courses in Canvas.
• Canvas Help information - The best way for students (and faculty) to contact the Teaching and Learning Center for technology help is to click on the “Help” button at the top of every page in Canvas and click “Report a Problem.” Make sure this information is on your syllabus!