Summer is almost upon us! Before you take to the outdoors to bask in the sun’s warming glow, please take a moment to review the five items below which will help you close out the spring quarter and prepare for the summer quarter (if you have summer classes).
FINISH SPRING QUARTER
1. Send Grades to CAESAR
The Teaching & Learning Technologies team has created a quick guide to help you navigate the Canvas gradebook. In addition, Canvas Support also has helpful guides on adding and editing grades as well as how to access SpeedGrader from the Gradebook.
Instead of manually entering each grade individually in CAESAR, you also have the option to enable GradeSync in your course which will automatically send your final grades to CAESAR with the push of a button. It can be used more than once throughout the grading period, allowing you to submit grades in batches or to adjust as you go. CAESAR will always reflect the most recent GradeSync submission.
2. Delete or Move Old Zoom Recordings
If you recorded lectures in Zoom during the quarter in which students are not present, it is recommended that you move the recordings to Panopto, Northwestern IT’s lecture capture and video content management service, to avoid automatic deletion over the summer. Directions for this can be accessed below.
- Which recordings should you save? Any asynchronous lectures recorded and shared through Zoom (including in Canvas courses).
- Which recordings should be deleted? Synchronous class sessions or recordings where students are present. These recordings should be deleted from Zoom at the conclusion of every term in accordance with guidelines from the Office of the Provost.
In addition, if you are copying a previous course into your new Canvas course, calendar links to previous Zoom meetings will appear on your Syllabus page once the course is published. The directions below will show you how to delete these past Zoom events from your current Syllabus page.
MOVE ZOOM RECORDINGS TO PANOPTO
REMOVE OLD ZOOM MEETINGS FROM IMPORTED COURSE CONTENT
GET READY FOR SUMMER QUARTER
3. Set Up Your Canvas Courses
Now that course sites for Summer 2021 are available in Canvas, put in your requests for multi-section course combines or custom course sites as soon as possible.
CUSTOM COURSE SITE REQUEST FORM
When setting up summer quarter courses in Canvas, it’s easy to pull content from previous courses you’ve taught into new course sites. You can import course content, from a single item, such as a specific quiz or assignment, up to an entire course’s content.
4. Sign Up for a 15-Minute Check-In
Have a quick Canvas question? Register for a 15-minute consultation with a learning engineer or learning technologist in Teaching & Learning Technologies. You can also ask the Canvas Support Chatbot for answers to common Canvas questions (and ask it to do things like create a prep site or increase the storage limit for your course).
5. Install a Learning App
Wondering what other educational software is available for you to use in Canvas? A tab for Northwestern Learning Apps can now be found within every Canvas course. It contains a listing of all available options, with descriptions and directions to install. Most of the apps only require one click on the INSTALL NOW button to install in each course
Need help with Canvas? Send us a message at canvas@northwestern.edu and a member of the Teaching & Learning Technologies team will be in touch.
Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay