GUIDE TO USING YOUR COURSE SHELL

Table of Contents

Fall 2016 COURSE SHELLS

COURSE SHELLS
CUSTOMIZING YOUR HOME PAGE
CUSTOMIZING THE IMPORTANT LINKS
CANVAS GUIDE TO WORKING WITH TABLES

MIGRATE YOUR CONTENT

STRUCTURING YOUR CLASS
PAGES
MODULES
CHECK COURSE CONTENT
CONTENT PAGES
EMBEDDED OR LINKED VIDEO FILES
FILES
QUIZZES

MIGRATING FROM MOODLE TO CANVAS

MOODLE BOOKS
MOODLE GLOSSARY
ASSIGNMENTS
DISCUSSIONS
SET UP HOME PAGE
SET UP STUDENT VIEW
HIDE COURSE NAVIGATION ELEMENTS FROM STUDENTS
TURN ON THE STUDENT VIEW
SYLLABUS
MODULES
DISCUSSIONS
SETTINGS
COURSE NAVIGATION

The Ed Tech Department at CCSF thanks Santa Rosa Junior College for graciously allowing us to edit their GUIDE
TO USING YOUR COURSE SHELL.

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GUIDE TO USING YOUR COURSE SHELL

Fall 2016 COURSE SHELLS

So you don't feel overwhelmed by the prospect of a completely blank course shell, all of your 2016
shells will include a course template with placeholders to help guide you in getting started in setting
up your course. The placeholders can be edited or deleted*.

If you decide to work with the placeholders, you'll find text in brackets [ ] , and also in red to alert
you to particular places where you'll want to insert your own unique content. Following are
descriptions of what you will see, what you may want to edit, and how to make the edits.

* To delete all placeholders, from within the course shell, click on Settings in the course navigation.
From the right sidebar, click the Reset Course Content button. Be careful! This function will clear
your shell of all content and render it totally empty.

COURSE SHELLS
Once you have logged in to Canvas, you can access your template course shell(s).

● All Fall 2016 course shells have been loaded with a CCSF template in Canvas for you to
build your course. Contact us using the form below if you don't have one and would like one.
● If you prefer to start with a blank shell see “How do I reset course content" Canvas guide.
Please use the forms below if you need:

If you are interested in teaching on Canvas in the Fall 2016 semester please fill out this form
http://goo.gl/forms/QW9WIUB4jW. We are requesting that people who teach on Canvas in Fall 2016
have
* deleted the Legacy Files in any Moodle course that you want to import into Canvas.
* completed a training on Canvas, or have experience teaching on Canvas.
* filled out the RamID request. This will be your Canvas password. (Look for an email from
admin@ccsf.edu).

CUSTOMIZING YOUR HOME PAGE

● From the Course navigation, click on the Home link.

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 ● Click the Edit button on the right side of the main center area to open the Rich Content
Editor.
● Remove the "Note to Instructor" text above the banner by highlighting it and deleting.
● Highlight the "Your Course Name Here" text in the banner, and replace with the name of
your course.

BANNER OPTIONS:

If you would like to change the color of the text, highlight the text and click on the text color icon in
the tools area.

NOTE: You'll need to make sure your text and background colors have sufficient contrast to pass
accessibility standards. Black (or very dark) text with a white (or very light) background is best.

If you would like to change the background color for the text, click anywhere in the green area
where the course title is located (this is a table cell).

● Click on the Table icon in the tools area.

● Navigate to Cells > Cell Properties.
● Click on the Advanced tab.
● In the Background color field, type in a 6- or 3-digit hexidecimal code after the # sign.

NOTE: See the Color Contrast Ratio Calculator page to view a table showing background colors
with sufficient contrast to pass accessibility standards. Choose a color that has at least a 3.1

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contrast (as indicated in the Calculator page) with black text, (or white text if you choose to change
the text color).

BANNER IMAGE REPLACEMENT

● Prepare your own image that is no wider than 1000 pixels. The default image is 1000 x 250
pixels. The Diego Rivera Mural image is 769 x 229.
● Click on the image in the banner and delete, leave the cursor still in the empty cell
● Upload the image by clicking on the Images tab in the Insert Content into the Page right
sidebar area
● Click on the Upload a new image link
● Click on the Browse button, browse to the image and upload, the image should appear in
the banner

CUSTOMIZING THE IMPORTANT LINKS

● Replace the red text for Important links with your own links. You don't have to put 3 links
here, you can delete any or all of those placeholders. Suggestions for links: News,
Announcements, Q & A Forum or other Intro Forum, Get Started link that takes you to
Modules, or links to important course resources.
● Scroll down further in the editing box to see the Instructor information. Add your name, email
address, and office hours.
● To put in a picture of yourself, click on the avatar icon next to the instructor information and
delete it. Upload your image (follow the steps listed above for uploading an image - in the
Banner image replacement area).
● Click on the Save button when finished.

CANVAS GUIDE TO WORKING WITH TABLES

To find details about editing table properties, inserting or deleting rows and columns, editing cells,
and deleting tables, see the "How Do I Insert a Table Using the Rich Content Editor?" Canvas
Guide.

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Each semester, your new course shell comes pre-loaded with placeholder examples, including
Overview pages for each potential module.

A table is used to display the Weekly Schedule on the Overview page, as shown below.

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To add the appropriate content to the table on your Overview pages, click the Edit button to open the
Rich Content Editor. Highlight the red text within a table cell, then click the Text Color icon in the
RCE toolbar and select "black".

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The text should still be highlighted, so simply enter the correct information. Move your cursor to the
next cell to repeat the process.

MIGRATE YOUR CONTENT

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This document is a work in progress that will continue to be updated. Please let us know your
suggestions for edits. For more information about Moodle migration, see the Canvas Training,
Resources and Support page.

Once all of your files have been packed up and moved, you may need to work with the content to
make sure it came over with all of the settings and formatting you want.

STRUCTURING YOUR CLASS

An important consideration when setting up your Canvas course is deciding on how to structure it. In
Canvas, it is highly recommended that you use Modules to organize a course. Modules will provide a
guided learning experience, a central place where the student will find links to pages, assignments,
discussions, etc. in a set sequence.

For Moodle users, using Canvas Modules will be similar to Moodle sections of topics, weeks, units,
etc. The Canvas student will use Modules to quickly see the contents of each week or unit's work
with pages, assignments, and discussions being parts of each module, rather than parts of long web
pages.

Moodle users that migrate their Moodle content will find that their course Modules have will be
populated with their content based on their Moodle section content.

PAGES

● The Pages in your course will be in alphabetical order. Creating order in your course will
come from Modules, so that is where you should start. You will pull in the pages you want to
use into Modules. We suggest that you hide the PAGES link in the course navigation menu.

MODULES
● Visit the Modules area of your course by clicking on the Modules navigation element in your
Course navigation. (Note that the link may be gray if you do not have published Modules
yet).
● Click on the +Module button to add a new Module
○ Name the Module

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 ○ Within the Module, click on the + Button
○ From the Add dropdown, choose Content Page
○ Select the page you want to move into the Module
● Moodle users will have modules set up based on the Moodle sections for weeks, topics,
units, etc. used.
○ Module heading text may be "Untitled" if you had used dates for your Moodle
sections.
○ Within the Modules, Moodle users may notice that the assignments, quizzes, and
pages are not in the same order as before. Most likely you will need to order these as
you want.
● See this Canvas video on Modules or this list of Canvas guides on Modules for more
information on working with Modules.

CHECK COURSE CONTENT

Not every item in your former course may have come over just the way you want. Here are some
things to check for.

CONTENT PAGES
● Check your content for references to Moodle. On each page, you can use the browser's Find
to locate these references. Use the Command (Mac) or Control (PC) + the F key to activate
the Find function.
● Browser-specific information, such as "accessing the videos work best in Firefox" will likely
not be needed anymore.
● LINKS: the migration tools we have are pretty good, but it is a good idea to check all links in
your course to make sure they are operational and go where you want them to.
You may find that URL hyperlink text is still there, but the text is no longer a hyperlink. This
would be a good time to reconsider using a URL as hyperlink text. Good accessibility
practice is to make your hyperlink text descriptive of where the link is going.
● HEADINGS: for accessibility, check your content for correct heading structure. Make sure
that headings are real headings, not just simulated headings. Access the paragraph/heading
drop down in the Rich Content Editor to apply Header 2, Header 3, or Header 4 to headings.
Assign the headings in a hierarchy that reflects the structure of the content.
● LISTS: make sure that lists are real lists, not faux lists. Use the ordered and unordered list
buttons in the Rich Content Editor to create lists.

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EMBEDDED OR LINKED VIDEO FILES
In most cases, you will need to manually upload video files either to Canvas if they are not too large
and plentiful, or to YouTube if there is a large amount of space needed. Canvas provides 500 MB of
space for each course. If needed, you can request more Canvas space, but it is recommended that
you use YouTube.

If you had your video files stored in Moodle, check to see if they came over in the migration files.

When uploading the files to Canvas, access the Rich Content Editor and use the Record/Upload
Media button. See the How do I upload a video using the Rich Content Editor Canvas guide for step-
by-step instructions.

FILES
From the Moodle migration process, all files (images and documents) have been placed in your Files
directory, most in the root level, and if you had images from tests, they will be in a folder called
"testimages".

● Click on the +Folder button found on the right side of the interface in the Files area.
● Name the folder and hit the Return or Enter key to create the folder.
● Drag and drop files into the folder. Canvas will update any linking you have to the file.

QUIZZES
Check your Canvas Question Banks and tests to make sure that all questions migrated over. Most
tests and quizzes will keep the various settings you created in Moodle, but in a few cases, you will
need to make some adjustments. Question types that do not map to a similar Canvas version are
those that award partial credit for answers, and questions that don't have a correct answer (survey-
type of questions).

● To correctly set up a survey-type of quiz that you have migrated to Canvas, click on the Quiz
in the Quizzes area, you will be in the Quiz settings screen, from the Quiz Type drop down,
choose Ungraded Survey.

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MIGRATING FROM MOODLE TO CANVAS
@One has created a Moodle to Canvas Migration Quick Start Guide PDF. This document is helpful
for outlining Moodle content and showing what the Canvas equivalents are in the table on the first 2
pages. The following pages do not seem helpful.

MOODLE BOOKS AND LESSONS

There is no identical tool in Canvas for Moodle books or lessons. When your content uploads into
Canvas, separate pages are automatically created; you may find these pages are uploaded in the
Modules or in the pages area. If they are in the modules, students can navigate these pages with
Back/Forward buttons at the bottom of each page (the buttons are automated). And students can
see the list of pages in the Modules tab for the course. We're finding that many instructors put very
little content on each page of their Moodle books. For those cases, we're encouraging instructors to
combine content onto fewer pages. Having more than a few pages within a single Module gets
cluttered in the Module content listings.

CCSF has a license with Softchalk that is available for all faculty to use with their CCSF online and
tech-enhanced classes. Softchalk is a software program that specializes in the creation of Books
and Lessons. When you create a Book or Lesson in softchalk you can link to it from Moodle or
Canvas. Please see the Canvas Training, Resources, and Support page for information about using
Softchalk.

MOODLE GLOSSARY
There is not a Glossary tool in Canvas. There is an ongoing discussion on the Canvas Community
site about a potential glossary tool. Visit this page to vote to encourage Canvas to create a glossary
tool. To vote: Click Login in the upper right of the screen, select "ccsf.instructure.com" from the
dropdown, and use your Canvas login credentials. After you're logged in, go back to the link above
and use the "up" arrow on the vote counter to add your vote. If you read further down the page, you
will see a solution that is not as good and more labor intensive.

ASSIGNMENTS
In Canvas, it is best to create Assignments. Adding assignment information this way will populate the
assignment information throughout the course, such as in the calendar, and make it easy to add the

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information in Modules so that students will easily find the information. See the "How do I create an
Assignment?" Canvas guide for more information.

DISCUSSIONS
Moodle users who created forums, will find that they will migrate as Discussions and installed in
Modules. See the “How do I create a Discussion as an instructor?” Canvas guide for more
information.

SET UP HOME PAGE

In Canvas, you have many options to choose and set up your course landing, or home page. Once
you have navigated to one of your courses, on the right side there will be a button for “Choose Home
Page”. Your template course has been set up with option number 2. A box pops up with 5 choices:

1. Course Activity Stream

2. Pages Front Page – for this choice you will need to go to pages, publish the page you want
to be the home page and then set it to be the home page. See the “How do I change the
Course Home Page?” and the “How do I set a Front Page for my course?” Canvas guides.
3. Course Modules – this choice will be much like the Moodle landing page for a course, with
the limitation that you can only display one line of text for each Module or item in a Module.
4. Assignments List
5. Syllabus – the syllabus is the only part of a course that you can choose to make public,
outside of setting your whole course to be public.

SET UP STUDENT VIEW

Choose what the student sees in the Course navigation area on the left side. Any area such as
Modules, Assignments, Files, etc. that have content in your Canvas course will show to the student
(in most areas the content also needs to be published to be visible to the student). If you do not have
any content published, such as in Assignments for instance, then the Assignments course navigation
will be hidden to the student. In the instructor view, what is grayed out will not show to students.

HIDE COURSE NAVIGATION ELEMENTS FROM STUDENTS

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It is recommended that you hide the Files area, because likely it will not be very useful for students
and can cause confusion. You may want to hide other areas as well.

You can choose to hide navigation to areas that you have content in by following these steps:

● From your Dashboard, choose a Course

● Choose Settings from the Course navigation (inner vertical navigation - if you do not see
these links to the right of the dark blue bar global navigation, either make your browser wider
or click on the mobile navigation button - the three short lines)
● From the horizontal nav at the top of the interface, choose Navigation
● Drag and drop items to the lower part of the interface where it says "Drag items here to hide
them from students". The items dragged here will be hidden from the student, but not in the
instructor view.

TURN ON THE STUDENT VIEW

To see what the student sees when navigating the course, follow these steps:

● From your Dashboard, choose a Course

● Choose Settings from the Course navigation (inner vertical navigation - if you do not see
these links to the right of the dark blue bar global navigation, either make your browser wider
or click on the mobile navigation button - the three short lines)
● Click on the Student View button from the right sidebar

SYLLABUS
A sample syllabus is loaded in your shell to help you fulfill all the CCSF requirements for syllabi.

● Click on the Edit Syllabus Description button in the right sidebar.

● Replace all red text and text in brackets with your information.
● If adding your own headings, make sure to use the Paragraph/Header drop down in the
Rich Content Editor toolbar to set headings and choose the right heading level. The heading
in place for "Course Syllabus" is a Header 1, and the other headings are Header 2. Continue
to Use Header 2 for added sections. Use Header 3 or Header 4 as appropriate for nested
sub-titles.

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 ● Click on the Update Syllabus button when finished.

MODULES
Click on the Modules Course navigation link and you will see a Getting Started module (Week 0)
and a Week 1 module that have been placed there for you. Within these modules there are Pages,
Discussions, and even a first week Quiz and Assignment are set up to help you get started. Delete
what you don't need and add Quizzes, Assignments, Discussions, or Pages as needed.

The Getting Started module has a lot set-up for you. Just add some text about yourself on the Meet
Your Instructor page, and replace the red text on the Week 0 page and the Check-In Discussion.
Notice that the other four items (Roadmap to Success in Online Learning, Navigating Your CANVAS
Course & Mobile App Tips, Q&A about this course, and Support for Students Learning Online) are in
green because they are published. These are fully complete as they are, and are a great resource
for students to get acclimated to working in Canvas.

DISCUSSIONS
● Notice that there are two Pinned Discussions. These are discussions that you want your
students to see at the top of the Discussions page. Pinned Discussions will always stay at
the top.
● A Q&A Discussion is placed at the top so students can use it throughout the course to ask
questions.
● To get students started interacting with the class, there is a Check-In Discussion for
introducing themselves to the class.
● The Discussion Week 1 is a template to get you starred on creating your own first week
discussion. Consider using the Student Lounge Discussion to promote discussions about
the week's topics and materials.

SETTINGS
Click on the Settings button in the Course navigation. From here you can modify Course Details,
Section information, Navigation, and Apps.

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For more detailed information about Settings, see these Canvas guides.

NOTE: Under the Visibility section of the Course Details area, it is recommended that you check
the box next to "Make the syllabus for this course publicly visible" so the syllabus can be viewed
by those looking to learn more about your course. (It is NOT recommended to check "Make this
course publicly visible.")

COURSE NAVIGATION
Your course shell has been set up with Course navigation elements chosen to show to students, and
some that have been hidden. You can make changes as you like, but should consider how the
added navigation areas will help or hinder the student to be guided through the course. For instance,
opening up the Files for navigation is not usually recommended because they will just see a list of
files in alphabetical order, which is not too helpful and can be confusing to the student. Similarly, you
may not want students to navigate all the pages alphabetically as they will appear if you leave the
Pages navigation element visible. It is much better to have the students navigate by Modules where
you can control the order of things.

To edit which navigation items to hide or reveal:

● Choose Settings from the Course navigation

● From the horizontal navigation at the top of the interface, choose Navigation
● Drag and drop items to the lower part of the interface where it says "Drag items here to
hide them from students". The items dragged here will be hidden from the student, but not
in the instructor view.

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