New Term Checklist

A checklist to provide faculty timely reminders of routine Canvas tasks before and after each term

At the Start of a New Term

Step 1: Import Content into the Course Shell

Course sites are created around 8 weeks prior to the term. If you would like to start working on your course prior to that time, contact CDLI to request a prep space.

Can’t find next quarter’s course? Your Canvas Dashboard is organized with "Published Courses" listed first, and "Unpublished Courses" listed below. You can also customize your course list to make specific courses easier to find.

Step 2: Double-check course dates, settings, links, syllabus & student roster

  • Consider grades settings
    • Select a grade posting policy for your course.
      • By default, grades are visible to students as soon as they are entered into the gradebook.
      • If you want to choose when to post grades, use the "Manually Post Grades" grading policy.
    • When students access their individual grade reports they have access to grade distribution graphs that display average student scores for each course assignment.
  • Double-check that modules, pages, and assignments are published
    • Unless you have specific items that you are deliberately keeping from students, it’s best to publish everything in your course. Check that all the modules are published. If the module itself is not published, students cannot access any materials within the module.
    • Here are instructions to publish or unpublish Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, Modules, and Pages.
      Screenshot of a module with Published and Unpublished content icons
  • Simplify course navigation *STRONGLY RECOMMENDED*
    • Hide unused or redundant links in your course navigation menu to help students more easily navigate your course.
    • How do I reorder and/or hide links in my Course Navigation menu?
    • Tip: CDLI recommends that you hide "Pages" and "Files" from your course navigation. The most commonly used course tabs are, in order: 1) Home 2) Syllabus 3) Announcements 4) Modules 5) Grades 6) People.
  • Check for broken links
    • Links to other websites (e.g.: news articles, YouTube videos, etc.) may become broken because they are maintained by entities outside Canvas at Seattle University. Be sure to check all of your links before you publish your course.
    • Tip: Use the link validator to quickly and easily check for broken links throughout your course. If the link validator finds broken links, it will direct you to the error so you can fix it.
  • Review Your Syllabus 
    • To ensure your course syllabus aligns with university requirements, please take a moment to compare it with the Syllabus Template and make any necessary changes.
  • Check student roster
    • Access the People Tab to find the student roster in your course.
    • Compare Canvas course student enrollments to the roster in mySeattleU.
    • If you find a discrepancy, email CDLI to fix the problem before the quarter begins.

Step 3 (If not meeting face-to-face): Set up your Zoom meetings for the quarter

Schedule your Zoom meetings for your class and office hours using the Zoom interface in Canvas. Scheduling your class Zoom meetings through the Canvas interface will ensure that all the Zoom meetings for that class will appear in the Zoom link in Canvas course navigation. Use the CDLI Faculty Guide for scheduling Zoom meetings in Canvas  for step-by-step instructions.

If your meetings will be the same day(s) and time each week, we suggest using the Recurring meeting function when setting up your Zoom meetings. Set up one meeting and then configuring that meeting to recur weekly on the same days (see below).

Screenshot of Recurring meeting options in Zoom

(Also remember to check Record the meeting automatically in the cloud so your meetings will be archived for students who might be sick or have connectivity problems that day. If you record to the Cloud, Zoom will automatically caption your recording, provide a searchable transcript, and it can easily be published in the Canvas-Zoom interface under the Cloud Recordings tab.)

Screenshot of the Record Meeting Automatically option and In the Cloud option selected

Step 4: Preview and publish your course

  • Preview the course using "Student View"
  • Publish your course
    • You must publish your course before students can access the course and its contents. Students cannot see unpublished courses and unpublished content.
      Screenshot showing Publish button for entire course on upper right corner of home page in Canvas
    • Note: If you accidentally publish before you are ready for the students to access the course, you can just click Unpublish to restrict access again.
    • But once a published course contains graded student submissions, the course status buttons will disappear and the course can no longer be unpublished. If you absolutely need to restrict access once your course has received student submissions, you can go into Settings and change the course start date to a future date and then check the box to restrict students from viewing course before term start date.
  • Need to publish your course but not all of your course content?
    • Any modules, pages, assignments, discussions, or quizzes that are not yet ready for students to view can be unpublished by clicking the green circle with the checkmark in it; it will change to a grey circle with a line through it to indicate that it is unpublished.
      Screenshot of a module with Published and Unpublished content icons
    • Again, double-check your course using Student View to ensure that students are seeing what you want them to see.

Step 5: Welcome students to your course

  • Considerations
    • Introduce how you are using Canvas (e.g.: Modules organization or Files structure, Syllabus, Assignment submissions, Discussions, Quizzes, Calendar, etc.)
    • Indicate how you will communicate with students and how they should communicate with you (e.g. Announcements, Inbox)
    • Show students how to manage their Course Notification preferences (recommend they keep Announcements and Inbox settings on ASAP).
    • Provide a link to the CDLI Help Center, where students can find self-help guides and information on getting help if something isn't working.
  • Give students a tour of your site during your first class
    • In addition to a course announcement, you may also choose to log into Student View to show your Canvas course to students using the projector in your classroom, over screen share in Zoom, or in an asynchronous course, recording a short Canvas tour video.

At the End of the Term

Step 1: Submit Final Grades to Registrar using mySeattleU

  • Submit grades to the Registrar using mySeattleU

Step 2: (Optional) Disable Student Access to your Course

Note: Courses "conclude" and become read-only for students on the last day to dispute grades (3 weeks into the following term & 3 weeks into the Fall term for Spring courses). 

Step 3: (Suggested) Archive Course Content and Student Artifacts

★ Note: Canvas courses and student records are not deleted from the system. Please follow the steps below if you’d like to download course data to your Seattle University OneDrive storage space.

  • Archive course content
    • Export your Canvas course to save a copy of the course on your local computer, or share a copy of the course with a colleague.
    • Tip: Have a large course? Canvas will email you when the export is ready to download.

Canvas Quicklinks

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24/7 Canvas Support

Student Support Hotline: 844-668-0893. Faculty Support Hotline: 833-250-2081.