Overview
Canvas is the campus's official Learning Management System (LMS) for activities such as maintaining an online grade book, providing online course content, conducting online quizzes and examinations, and more. Canvas houses official courses reflected in the schedule of classes, but in some cases, academic departments have a need to create a course that is not for credit. All approved non-credit courses will run the duration of the academic year and require a renewal annually.
Non-Credit Course Guidelines
Approval Guidelines:
- Non-Credit courses should support instruction.
- A separate request form will need to be submitted for each requested non-credit Canvas course.
- Supervisors must approve the course request.
- Teachers, TAs, and Graders are expected to have completed the FERPA training available on UC Learning.
- Requestors will need to attach their active FERPA certificate to the course request.
- Each non-credit course must have at least two teachers assigned to a course. This allows for continuity in instruction and alleviates any potential delay of adding a secondary instructor if the primary one leaves or changes assignment.
- Enrollments are to be managed by the "Teacher(s)" of the non-credit course. It is best to have at least two teachers at a time, in case if a teacher leaves the other teacher can continue to provide access to the course.
- Role accounts and shared usernames are not allowed in Canvas for security and privacy purposes. If used, these role accounts will be promptly removed without warning.
- Recognize that courses will close at the end of the academic term and a new course shell will need to be requested annually.
- Recognize student content cannot be transferred to a new course.
- Recognize course content is managed by the teachers of the course.
- Recognize that course shells will be blank upon creation. If previous content is desired, a user who has TA/Course Designer/Teacher permissions or a combination of these permissions in both courses would be the individual to copy course content.
- Understand that while ETS will attempt to address my question or concern as soon as possible, support for official courses are prioritized.
Best Practices:
- Utilize Canvas's help articles to familiarize yourself with the system: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/tkb-p/Instructor. Limited in-person and ticket support is offered to non-credit courses, as support is dedicated to official courses of UC San Diego.
- Because enrollments are managed by the teachers of the course and not coordinated through the Registrar's database, there will be some cases where a student's profile is not found. To avoid this, it is recommended that all participants log into Canvas.ucsd.edu to initiate their creation of their profile.
- Only those with Active Directories can be invited to a Canvas course.
- Courses that enroll more than 1,000 students are not recommended.
- All participants need to log into first in order to be added to the class. Only those with Active Directories can be invited to a Canvas course.
- Canvas is not designed to host a massive online course. Courses that host more than 1,000 users is prone to have errors.
- Canvas is FERPA compliant, but teachers should ensure those who are added as TAs, graders and other teachers have taken UC Learning's FERPA training.
- Canvas is not designed to protect financial information.
- Canvas is not designed to protect HIPAA information.
- Canvas is not intended to house documents relating to a hiring process or employee performance management.
- Canvas is not designed to be a repository.
- Canvas is not built to be a training platform. For staff trainings, please connect with UC Learning.
Steps To Take
Request a non-credit course site
- Complete or ensure your FERPA training is current.
- Fill out the Canvas Non-Credit Course request form.
- Await for a response, typically two weeks.
Other Resources
Other Resources to consider instead of Canvas