GSA 19/20 Canvas Courses: Now Active

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GSA Teaching Staff: Your 19/20 courses are now live! They should appear on your Canvas dashboard when you log in. 

Canvas

The 19/20 courses are now ready to be populated with your content. You will find that the new courses have a home page that includes instructional videos to guide you through the setting up process.

All existing GSA staff enrolments on 18/19 courses should have been replicated in the 19/20 versions of the courses. This includes admins, teachers, support and observers on courses. External users – teachers, guest speakers, or external examiners – have not been added to the new courses. If any external user needs to access 19/20 courses they can be enrolled directly by the other teaching staff, by the programme administrative staff, or by contacting lthelp@gsa.ac.uk

When you open your 19/20 course, you will notice that the home page is a page of instructions for you. You can also view all the videos on the Using Canvas for Staff course.

PLEASE NOTE: If you do NOT see both 18/19 and 19/20 courses on your dashboard, you can still import from 18/19 to 19/20 in the normal way, as described in the course rollover video guides you will find on your course homepage!

Can’t see the courses you expected? You can  find all your 19/20 courses, current courses and your past courses as follows:

  • Click on ‘COURSES’ from the side menu
  • Scroll to the bottom of the list and click on ‘ALL COURSES’. 
  • Here you’ll see a list of all your current courses. Those with an orange star appear on your dashboard as ‘favourites’. Tick or untick the star to organise the tiles you see on your dashboard. 
  • If you scroll to the bottom of that list you can view and access your past enrolments. 

Want to make your new course more engaging?

So you’ve got the basics of Canvas down, and now you’re looking for a way to enhance your course and make it a wee bit snazzier.  You’ll find lots of tips for adding colour, textboxes, backgrounds, etc on the Using Canvas for Staff course

Some new things about the courses this year:

Reading List

Your 19/20 course has a ‘Reading List’ link in the first module (General Information). Our new reading list system is now visible to guests, so students can browse all reading lists before they arrive at GSA, or before they are enrolled on a course. Find the new reading lists at gsa.keylinks.org.

If  you  provided a reading list last year, this list will be carried over to 19/20, and you will be asked to give the library any updates. This Reading List link will be made active before your students are enrolled in September – no action is required on the part of academic staff.

Gradebook

The new Canvas Gradebook includes many features designed to improve the grading experience. Changes in the new gradebook include:

  • Sorting: Sort assignment columns by their order in modules.
  • Filtering: Filter assignments by assignment group and/or by module.
  • Customization for Grading Statuses: Set custom colors for specific submission and grading statuses, including: late, missing, resubmitted, dropped (via assignment group rules), and excused.
  • Sorting Columns: Sort the data in any Gradebook column by missing or late status.
  • Grade Input: Toggle between entering and viewing grades as points or as percentage values.
  • Unpublished Assignments: View or hide unpublished assignments.
  • Automate Late Policies: Automatically apply grading rules to late and missing submissions.
  • Adjust Submission Status: Manually adjust submission status to none, late, missing, or excused.
  • Override the calculated final grade

Here is a really useful chart comparing old and new gradebooks, and giving instructions on how to perform tasks.

For even more information, check out the New Canvas Gradebook Guide.

Need help? Contact lthelp@gsa.ac.uk
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