Course Creation and Management

The video below introduces you to course creation and briefly describes the restrictions to look out for during the creation as well as the initial settings to perform for the empty course before you begin to add the contents. Scroll down to find the text description.

Course Creation

This allows you to build your course from scratch or import courses from elsewhere on Canvas or another Learning Management System.

The official Canvas LMS video above briefly introduces you to course creation and management in Canvas.

The following steps will assist you to begin your course creation journey in Canvas.

You first need to click on the dashboard to open yourself to the dashboard View of the Canvas start screen.
You then scroll to the bottom right of the Canvas interface and you´ll find the Start New Course button.
Enter Your course name and set the copyright details plus the Course visibility.
Your empty course will be automatically created; you are free to start adding course contents.
You can either opt to import contents from a different course; or start creating your course from scratch.

Remember; When importing a course from a different LMS, canvas commons or Canvas Community, be careful not to violate the copyright rules associated with the course.

Also remember, VUB will hand most course spaces to the lecturers and its teachers, so you as a teacher will not have to create your course from the very start.

Adding Course Contents to a new course

When you have your empty new course ready for the contents, there are various ways of adding contents to the Course including pages, Modules etc.

The most Common way of adding contents to your course is by the use of Modules.

Modules

Modules Are the mode through which instructors can arrange and organize the flow of their courses. They can organize the course by units, weeks, related contents or any other organizational means of the instructor´s choice.

The modules thereby create an organized linear flow for the course.

Modules act like chapters of a book, organizing the flow of your content and ideas based on the common topics, sets of classes or difficulty levels. They might also organize the chronology of your contents based on the order in which you teach the contents in your classes.

Under each course are the learning materials including files, assignments, quizzes, discussions, and pages that will be organized based on the instructor´s interests. These are arranged in modules to ensure that the content is chronological and related.

You can choose to select from the first big 4 materials (pages, Quizzes, assignment, discussion) which type of content you wish to add to your modules.

This selection of the content addition tools will then guide you to the Rich Content Editor (and the HTML Editor) where you are able to edit the name and actual contents of the learning material selected.

You should however already decide on how many of the items (pages, quizzes, assignments etc) will make up each of your modules. You also decide on the number of modules you need to have for your course depending on the needs of your students and the extensiveness and demands of your course.

The immediate next section introduces you to module creation.