Introduction

When you are just starting out with a new learning management system (LMS), or when you're exploring new ideas for using specific tools and features, it's often helpful to have a short list of recommendations to guide you. This page includes a few general recommendations along with more specific guidelines.

Course design recommendations

Canvas courses that are designed according to good practices are easy for students to navigate and for instructors to use and maintain. The following are five simple recommendations for anyone creating a course in Canvas:

1. Make a great first impression

Make the course home page a place that welcomes students.
Use the home page to make it clear to students where to go and what to do first.

2. Make it easy for students to find everything

Keep your course navigation simple to help your students easily get to where they want to go within the course.
Create modules that are organized by unit or week, and make sure a given module contains everything a student will need in order to complete it.
Avoid duplication by publishing content in the course one time and linking to it as needed in other parts of the course.
For clarity, write brief but descriptive names for pages, files, assignments, and modules.

3. Let students know what to expect

Include a complete and descriptive syllabus page in your course. From the first day of class, students want to know what they will be learning and how they will be graded, so it is important to include those elements in your syllabus page.
Use the built-in due-date settings for all course assignments, quizzes, and discussions to ensure that the dates appear consistently in all parts of the course. This will ensure that dates appear correctly on the course calendar and will allow students to take advantage of Canvas's notification options to keep them on track and on task throughout the semester.
Use rubrics for each assignment to let students know how their work will be evaluated.

4. Keep students informed and engaged

Use the Canvas notifications to stay up to date on student activity in your courses, and help students to understand their notification settings so they receive important communications from you.
Send announcements for special events, updates, and news items.
Create graded or ungraded discussions to facilitate communication and collaborative learning around key course topics.

5. Keep accessibility in mind

The UMN Disability Resource Center has created a self-guided tutorial with additional information about creating accessible Canvas courses.

These good practices have been adapted from a number of sources, most notably from Samuel Merritt University.

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