Organizing a Canvas Course
You may organize your course content in a variety of ways. Here are some resources that will assist you in organizing your Canvas course content effectively.
Canvas: Options for Organizing Your Course
Designing your Canvas course can be done using Modules, Pages, or a combination of both for maximum flexibility.
Modules: Modules are similar to content folders. They allow you to collect and organize course content into separate units that guide students through the material. Modules can help you organize your course materials by chronological order (e.g., week, day), topic, unit, outcome, or any other organizational structure. A module allows you to add files, assignments, quizzes, discussions, and external resources in a guided learning experience. See more details about Modules in the Canvas Instructor Guide.
Pages: Pages create an opportunity to build the organization of your course in one visually appealing location. You might use a Canvas page for each week or topic in your course and then create links to the various activities, assignments, resources, and assessments for that week. Or, you might use a homepage structure that has links to each important page in the course based on the content. Within each page, you can use the Rich Content Editor tool to insert text and images, embed a video, create a table, add links, and a link to internal and external websites or other resources. See the Canvas Instructor Guide on Pages for more details.
The NSM-IT Canvas Course Templates below provide examples of combining Modules and Pages in your course design layout. You can also visit our Canvas Template Resources page to learn more about our Canvas official template.
Canvas Organization Best Practices
Design Principles for Canvas: Design principles to manage communications, increase productivity, and improve feedback and assessment. (Stanford University)
Canvas: Decide How to Organize Your Course Content: Covers the benefits and limitations to organizing your course by Pages and by Modules. (How-Tos | University of Minnesota)
Organizing Your Canvas Course: Provides information on how to effectively use and organize your Canvas course based on student’s feedback. (Canvas Help | Yale)
Organizing Your Course in Canvas - 6 Best Practices (Rutgers Teaching and Learning)
Organize your course for remote instruction: Information on organizing your Canvas course to help students focus on course content. (Keep Teaching | UC Davis)
Canvas Considerations for Large Courses: Recommendations for designing a large enrollment course. (Course Building best practices | Texas A&M )
Canvas Pages vs. Canvas Modules: Comparison to help you make design decisions.
Best practices for online teaching and learning: To optimize the online learning environment for you and your students. (Course Building best practices | Texas A&M )
Course Development Checklists:
Templates:
Use templates to help you organize your course content. See some templates below:
NSM Templates:
The NSM-IT Canvas Course Templates have been designed to help you get started structuring your content in Canvas and can be easily imported into your course and customized for your needs.
NSM-IT Sample Template Basic:
View NSM-IT Basic Template mini-showcase: To preview the template to get an idea of what would work best to guide the student learning in your course.
View NSM-IT Sample Template Basic – Production Course
Download Canvas imscc file: Refer to the How do I Import the Template? section below for instructions on how to use it.
NSM-IT Sample Template Embellished:
View NSM-IT Template Embellished mini-showcase: To preview the template to get an idea of what would work best to guide the student learning in your course.
View NSM-IT Template Embellished -Production Course
Download Canvas imscc file: Refer to the How do I Import the Template? section below for instructions on how to use it.
Contact the NSM-IT Educational Technology and Multimedia Team if you have any questions about how to effectively implement the course template into your course or want to customize it further. You can set up a consultation or email us at nsmit@central.uh.edu.
Other sample courses and templates:
HED-Weekly-Cityscape: This template has a weekly instructional layout.
HED-Module-Bold: This template has an instructional layout organized into modules.
How do I Import a Template?
**Note: We DO NOT recommend importing the entire template into an existing course with developed content. It is best to import the template into an empty course shell or Canvas Sandbox.
How to set up a Canvas DEV course shell and Import the Canvas Course Template
Use the links above to download the appropriate Canvas Template Export File. The file is in .imscc format (Do not try to open this file).
Enter the Canvas DEV course shell and click on the "Settings" tab in the left side menu.
Click on the "Import Course Content" link on the right side menu.
For Content Type, select "Canvas Course Export Package" in the drop down menu
Then browse for the .imscc file that you downloaded in Step 1
For Content, select "All Content"
Click the "Import" button. The process may take a few minutes to complete.
The template is now imported into your Canvas DEV course shell.
For more information visit the Canvas tutorial: How do I import a Canvas course export package?
If you would like to import only sections of the template into your Canvas Course follow the instructions in the next section.
For information about the Course Import Tool's limitations, view the Course Import Tool overview.
How do I Copy Specific Sections of a Template Into a Canvas Course?
It is recommended to first import the Canvas Course template into a Canvas DEV course shell before importing specific content into your Canvas Course. Follow the instructions in the section above to import the template into a Canvas DEV course shell before proceeding with the instructions in this section.
Import Specific Content from the Canvas DEV course shell to your Canvas Course
Follow the directions in the section above to import the Canvas template into a Canvas DEV course shell
Go to the Settings section of your Canvas Course
On the right side menu click on "Import Course Content"
For Content Type select "Copy a Canvas Course"
For Search for a Course, Select the Canvas Sandbox that you imported the course template into
For Content: "Select Specific Content"
Click "Import"
A blue button will appear that says "Select Content"
Select the specific content you want to import from the template to your course and click "Import"
For more information visit the Canvas tutorial: How do I select specific content as part of a course import?
For information about the Course Import Tool's limitations, view the Course Import Tool overview.