Canvas Orientation for Dual Credit Instructors

Spring 2023 End-of-Semester Reminders

Spring has finally sprung in central Illinois—just in time for the end of the semester! As you are wrapping up your Spring 2023 courses and preparing to submit final grades, you may find that you need a refresher on a few different Canvas processes. The Teaching and Learning Commons (TLC) put together this quick reference guide to help you finish the semester strong.

CANVAS GRADES

Grades will not be synced if you do not have your grading scheme turned on. In your Gradebook, you will have a total column that will display the total points or percentages, depending on how you have your Gradebook configured. Students will then need to review your Syllabus to determine which letter grade corresponds with the total points or percentage. Instead, you can set a grading scheme in your class so that the total points or percentage will appear next to the letter grade. This feature is turned on in the settings of your course and can be edited to fit your grading scheme. Use this tutorial for help configuring your grading scheme. When entering your grades into IRIS, the letter grade in your Canvas course can be synced. Grades will not be synced if you do not have your grading scheme turned on. 

Export your grades for your Division Administrative Assistant. Once your course is completed, you may want to export your course grades to share with your Division Administrative Assistant. To do this, you will need to open your Gradebook and select “Export.” Here is a quick guide to show you how to use CSV files and what the field names represent.

INCOMPLETE GRADES

To give a student an incomplete grade, you need to fill out and submit the Incomplete Grade Agreement Contract in IRIS. The system will sync with Canvas and extend the student’s access to the course until the date indicated on the contract.

GRADES FOR INACTIVE STUDENTS

Remember, you have access to student submissions and grades even past the course end date.  However, you need to enable inactive students and concluded enrollments to view them. In any past course, hover over the student name column in the Gradebook and click "Show inactive enrollments” and "Show concluded enrollments.” This will populate your class with students’ grades as well as their past submissions. Here is a tutorial for help on viewing inactive students' submissions and grades.

SUBMITTING FINAL GRADES

Our registrar's office has made a tutorial for how to submit final grades in IRIS.

SUMMER COURSES

As a reminder, summer courses will publish five days before the course start date. You can find the start date of your course by clicking on the Settings link in Canvas.

ORGANIZING CANVAS ASSIGNMENTS & THE GRADEBOOK

Any assignment you create in Canvas is a direct alignment with the Gradebook. Click on the Assignments link in your course—how the assignments are listed on this page (how they are organized into groups, the order in which they are listed) is exactly how they will appear in the Gradebook. Take a minute to verify that your assignments are organized effectively: drag and drop them into the correct groups and place them in the order in which students completed them. This will make your Gradebook easier to view. You can use this tutorial to help you with organizing your Assignments. If you weight your grades, you can use the options on the Assignments page to weight each group or drop the highest/lowest scores in a group. Here are some tutorials to help: 

• Creating Assignment Groups 
• Setting Assignment Group Weights 
• Dropping highest/lowest assignments within groups

What questions do you have? Please let us know—the TLC staff is here to support you!

Wishing you a stress-free end of the semester,

Anna Catterson, Director of Online Learning & Instructional Technologies
Pete Pucek, Instructional Technologist
Alex Kritselis, Instructional Technologist

How-to find more information and learn more about Yuja

    Many faculty members in higher education include discussion forums in their learning modules. Discussion forums are not only a best practice in higher education, but one of the basic forms of communication still around from the early start of the internet. 

    Many of us in higher education can be classified as Lifelong learners- meaning we continue to learn from one day to the next. Bear in mind, learning is more than simply knowledge. Knowledge is something in your head that you can recall on demand. 

Learning is classified as

• a new concept, 
• an old concept but a better way to execute, 
• an old concept with new information, or 
• a new way to apply an old concept. 

Pew research reported 15% of all internet users read or post comments on an online discussion forum (2015). 

    This blog post wants to introduce you to the Yuja Community. The Yuja Community grants any user the opportunity to: 1. ask and answer questions. Statistically, if you have a question, someone else has the same question, they refuse to ask it.

In the Yuja Community, you can

Take a moment to take your Yuja usage/instructional media to the next level and join the Yuja Community. 

How to Locate and Embed your Yuja videos in Canvas

Canvas Orientation

How to use the "My Credentials" tool in Canvas

New integration in Canvas grants faculty the opportunity to award badges in their course.

Spring 2023 Professional Development Dates

Spring 2023 Professional Development opportunities are now published and available! We hope that these robust offerings will fit your learning interests. All offerings will be provided in a face-to-face OR Zoom option. 

Spring 2023 PD Offerings 

 

 We look forward to some new experiences in the Spring!

Anna