Step by Step Guide to Building Your Canvas Course Site

Have you created a course map Links to an external site. and finalized your syllabus, and are now faced with the (somewhat) daunting task of getting everything into a Canvas site? This page is for you.

Canvas offers many options for storing and organizing content, but most courses can use a few simple tools to set up an effective and easy-to-navigate site. This page provides step-by-step instructions for building a course site.

 

1. Consider a course layout template

Think about your course content and structure. How do you expect students will engage with your Canvas site on a daily and weekly basis? What will be most important for them to be able to find quickly? How can you organize your materials to make their interactions with the site as easy as possible? How will your Canvas site complement your teaching and classroom activities?

Once you have an idea in mind, review these course layout templates to see if any of them align with your vision. Click through each template to see if it has a visual appearance you like or a structure that makes sense for your course.

Course layout templates contain pre-formatted pages that can provide an appealing visual design and a consistent look and feel to your course. These pages are already organized into a structure that you can tweak to fit your course. 

Course layout templates often work best for instructors who are already comfortable organizing and editing Canvas content, as they will need to be edited, sometimes extensively. If you're a Canvas beginner interested in using a course layout template, request a consultation for support.

If none of the course layout templates seem quite right, or you have a different idea in mind, it might be easier to simply create the Pages, Modules, or other content delivery areas from scratch.

2. Gather your assets

Whether you are using a template or starting from scratch, the next step is to gather your assets. If you are using a template, be sure to import it before taking the steps below.

  • Upload a printable version of your syllabus and other files you will want to share with students.
    • See this guide Links to an external site. for uploading files. If you have a lot of files to upload, create folders to keep them organized. Once uploaded, you can link to these files from many areas in your site, including Pages, Modules, Assignments, and the Syllabus tool. 

  • Create Assignments where students can submit their work to you.
  • Create Discussion topics for any asynchronous discussions you have planned.
  • If you have the materials ready, go ahead and create any Quizzes you will include.

Note: You can add files, Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes after you have built out your scaffold as well. Having everything in the site already will just make the building process a bit easier.

3. Build your scaffold

Once you have added your assets, you are ready to build out the structure of your site. It’s likely your syllabus (or course map if you created one) is divided into sections; you can design your site in a way that reflects that organization. There are two main methods instructors use to create structure in Canvas: Pages and Modules. Read this article Links to an external site. to learn a bit more about what Pages and Modules can do.

Many sites use both Pages and Modules. Pages give instructors the ability to create "mini webpages" where they can include descriptive, personalized content. Modules function as "buckets" or "folders" in which instructors can group their many assets, including Pages, files, assignments, etc.

If you are using a course layout template, you’ll need to revise the structure, adding or removing Pages or Modules to fit your course’s content.  

To organize your site with Modules, follow these steps:

  • Create your Modules.
    • See this guide to creating Modules. Depending on your course, it might make the most sense to group things week by week, or by topic.
  • Add content to your Modules.
    • See this guide or adding content links to your modules.

Whether or not you use Modules, most sites will use at least a few Pages. (Some sites will use many!) To add content to your site using Pages, follow these steps:

 

Regardless of how you structure your site, we recommend you make use of the Syllabus tool in your site. The Syllabus tool will pull dates from scheduled course items to give students a chronological look at course due dates and events.

  • See this guide about the Syllabus tool. Any item with a due date (Assignment, Discussion, etc.) will appear on the Syllabus page. If you schedule Zoom meetings through your Canvas site, those dates and links will appear here as well.

 

3. Add final touches

Once your structure has been built, complete these last tasks to prepare your course site for students.

  • Select your course home page.
    • See this guide. Consider using the Syllabus page as the course home page. In the content editor portion of the Syllabus page, you can link to your printable syllabus document and add your name and contact information. If you are using a course layout template, the course home page is likely already set but you can change it if you’d like.

  • Set your Grade Posting Policy.
    • When you enter grades for students, they will be automatically available to students, unless you set up a Manual Grade Posting Policy. See this guide.

  • Add images to make your site more attractive, if desired.
  • Clean up your course tool menu to remove unnecessary items. 

 

4. Publish your site

Hooray! Your site is ready to be published.