Category: Online Education News You Can Use

Online Ed News You Can Use – April 2025

I hope you have a chance to enjoy spring 🦋🌼🐝 in the beautiful world around us! In the online world, some important news, reminders, and upcoming opportunities …

Summer and Fall Classes are in SURF and Canvas

  • Course sections assigned to you in SURF for summer and fall now have shells available for you to work with in Canvas (select Courses on the left, then All Courses to see upcoming classes that aren’t yet on your dashboard).
  • If any of your fall (or summer) course sections are Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) or Low Textbook Cost (<=$40), you should designate them as such in SURF using these directions, so that the classes will have the appropriate logo in SURF. And don’t forget to inform the bookstore of your course material details, even if you are using zero-cost resources.

Professional Learning Opportunities related to teaching online

  • Tomorrow and continuing through spring: CVC webinars on Generative AI (also provides access to recordings of previous ones)
  • April 14-16: the free online Peralta Online Equity Conference – register to receive email updates and access to recorded sessions!
  • April 24, 1-2:30 pm: The CCC Accessibility Center is hosting an online workshop, “How to Create Accessible Canvas Courses with PopeTech”. Registration is NOT required – simply use the Zoom link to access. PopeTech is available in our Canvas.
  • April 25, 10 am – 3 pm: Alex Rockey of Bakersfield College is facilitating a free online Mobile Design Unconference. Register to learn more.
  • May 12 – June 8: Perusall will host an online, author-facilitated, communal reading experience (“asynchronous book club”) on John Warner’s book, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. It has a small cost to cover access to the book. And, you’ll get to experience the social annotation tool, Perusall.
  • May 15: The CCC Accessibility Center has a free Annual Workshop with sessions throughout the day. One registration allows you to attend any sessions.
  • May 19–23: The free online Perusall Exchange conference, “Why Reading Matters to the Future of Learning,” includes some compelling speakers and also an opportunity to learn more about the Perusall social annotation tool, which we have available to use in Canvas.
  • Summer:
    • The CCC Online Teaching Conference is in Long Beach, June 16-18. If you would like support to attend, let me know! Early bird registration ends April 15. Online Ed can cover conference registration but likely not hotel or other travel expenses.
    • All facilitated and self-paced @ONE online teaching courses are free! (Be sure to click through the additional pages to see all your options.) Enroll now in a facilitated class before they fill up!
    • The online Cal OER conference is August 6-8. The call for proposals is open now through June 2.
  • Anytime: Schedule an appointment with either of our wonderful Instructional Designers, Nadia Khan or Stephanie Kelley (who specializes in support for faculty working on classes that use OER or other zero cost materials).

– Jim

Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Coordinator, Online Education

Stay Up To Date with Changes Happening within Canvas

Visit the new Upcoming Canvas Changes page within the Canvas Community. This page is updated by Instructure and is the central location for communicating all Canvas’s significant upcoming changes. Canvas recommends you click the Follow button at the top of the document so you will receive all updates as they are made available. You may also want to review the upcoming Canvas Release Notes to find out what is coming soon and when. Check the Canvas System Status Updates for real time updates about existing features within Canvas.

Upcoming Canvas Changes
Canvas Release Notes
Canvas System Status Updates
MiraCosta Canvas Server Uptime Report

Canvas Start of the Semester Instructor Checklist

Create or Import your Content

Multiple ways to begin to build your class

Copy from another class in Canvas. Your access to classes you have previously taught in Canvas continues indefinitely.

Copy in an entire course or portions of one from Canvas Commons.

Create your content from scratch in Canvas

Review Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions

  • Verify activities and content in the course are published.
  • Verify dates. Due dates are added to the calendar and the syllabus and serve as reminders to students. “Available from” and “Until” dates will unlock and lock the activity.
  • Verify instructions are accurate and well formatted.
  • Verify assignment submission types.
  • Verify number of quiz attempts is correct.
  • Verify assignment groups are set up correctly. See: How to use Assignment Index Page.
  • Verify assignments are weighted correctly, if using a weighted grading system. See: How to Weight Assignment Groups.
  • Verify discussions are ordered logically on Discussions list page.
  • Verify Quiz “Options” are correct. See: Canvas Quiz Options.

Review Course Details

Final Preparations

  •  Publish your course when you are ready for students to have access to it. This typically is on the morning of or before the official course start date. See: How do I publish a course? NOTE: Some faculty like to publish their courses well in advance of the start date, but only publish a handful of elements of the course (such as the syllabus). This allows enrolled students to “preview” the class.
  • For online and hybrid classes, encourage students to attend a Student Online Academic Readiness (SOAR) workshop. You may also wish to share the Canvas Student Orientation to help any students who are new to Canvas to have a resource for learning the basics.
  •  Especially for online and hybrid classes, send an email to your students through your SURF Roster telling them how to access your course in Canvas.

Cautions

  • Canvas email (Inbox/Conversation) messages will not be sent out if the course is unpublished. Send class messages from your SURF Roster instead, prior to publishing the course.
  • Pay attention to the time stamp on anything you have placed a date on. 12:00 means the very first minute of the selected day. For end dates, it is often best to choose 11:59 PM to ensure you are setting it up on the correct date.

Office 365 Integration in Canvas

MiraCosta College Canvas supports an LTI integration with Microsoft Office 365 in Assignments, Collaborations, Modules, Course Navigation, and the Rich Content Editor. This integration allows students and instructors to use, create, share, and collaborate on Office 365 files within Canvas. Users can also view their OneDrive files directly in Canvas.

Enable the Office 365 Integration in Canvas

  1. Enter your Canvas course
  2. Click Settings on the course menu
  3. Click the Navigation tab
Zoom Canvas LTI Step 2 and 3
  1. Click the 3 dots to the right ofOffice 365 and select Enable.
  2. Click the Save button
Office 365 step 4 and 5

Log on to Office 365 as a Faculty / Staff Member

  1. Click the Office 365 course menu item which will appear in your course menu.
  2. Click the Log In button.
  1. Enter your Faculty / Staff MCC email address

    Example: kturpin@miracosta.edu
  2. Click the Next button
  1. Click the Accept button on the Permissions requested page.
    Note: This page will only display the first time you log on to the Office 365 Integration in Canvas.
Step #5 Permissions Page

Now you can access Office 365 documents from inside of Canvas.

Faculty Office 365 Guides for Canvas

Faculty & Student Office 365 Help and FAQS

  • General MiraCosta Office 365 help and FAQs
    You will need your MiraCosta credentials to access this.
  • Students log on to Office 365 with their  MiraCosta Student Email Address
    They may also use their SURF ID + “@student.miracosta.edu“
    Example: W71234567@student.miracosta.edu
  • Faculty Support & Student Support for Office 365 is provided by the ITS Help Desk. 
    • Telephone: (760) 795-6850

Adding Faculty Evaluators, TLC Staff, Community Ed Students, Substitute Instructors, and TAs to Canvas classes

Students and Instructors are automatically enrolled from SURF to your Canvas course several times a day.

For the roles called out below, follow the specified directions to have the user enrolled within your course with the appropriate role.

  • Faculty Evaluator:  Work with your dean when you need to provide access to a peer, your chair, etc. to conduct an evaluation. Approved evaluators are handled by your dean through the Office of Instruction’s procedures. The evaluator will be added on SURF and uploaded to Canvas for the allowable period of time. During that time, the evaluator will have the ‘Evaluator’ Canvas role. The Evaluator Canvas role has the same permissions as the student role.
  • The Learning Centers (TLC) ASIC, STEMLC, & Writing Center: Contact Amy Paopao at (760) 757-2121 ext. 6389 or apaopao@miracosta.edu. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘TLC Staff ‘ Canvas role.
  • Community Education Student: Contact Karen Turpin at kturpin@miracosta.edu. Include the confirmation of student enrollment through community education. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘Student Other’ Canvas role.
  • Substitute Instructors, & TAs: Work with your dean to provide access to Canvas for the substitute instructor or TA. Approved substitute instructors and TAs are handled by your dean through the Office of Instruction’s procedures. The substitute instructor or TA will be added on SURF and uploaded to Canvas for the allowable period of time. During that time, the substitute instructor will have the ‘Teacher’ Canvas role and the TA will have the ‘TA’ Canvas role.

1 2 3 … 32