MiraCosta Online Ed Tips & Reminders: 2025 Year-end

Dear MiraCosta Faculty, 

Here are a few reminders, resources, and opportunities as 2025 comes to a close!

Canvas End of Term Support and Reminders

After Dec. 31, your fall Canvas classes go into read-only mode for you and your students, and move from the Canvas Dashboard to the Past Enrollments area of Canvas (select Courses at left in Canvas, then All Courses to see Past Enrollment courses). If you wish to remove access to any of your course materials for your current students beyond this semester, you need to do so by Dec. 31. Review our Canvas end-of-term guide for details. It also discusses what you need to do if you have any students who will receive Incomplete grades, as well as what to do if you wish to close course access sooner than Dec. 31. If you’d like help with any semester wrap-up tasks, and/or as you begin working on spring classes, you can consult with our Instructional Designer, Nadia Khan (click the link to schedule a time). 

ZTC/OER Support and Reminders

For those teaching spring classes that are Zero- or Low-Textbook Cost, if you haven’t yet done so, please update your course section ZTC/LTC designations in SURF. For folks looking for support building spring ZTC classes or just exploring the use of OER, you can book a consult with our ZTC/OER Instructional Designer, Stephanie Kelley (click the link to schedule a time).

If You’re Already Thinking About Spring

  • Stop! Chill out. Rest.
  • Ok, if you insist … remember that in 2025 we added two nifty tools to streamline your Canvas course copy and reuse processes:
    • Adjust-All – makes copying previous Canvas courses for reuse a lot easier. It enables you to change all course item due dates and announcement publication dates in one place, rather than having to access each item individually.
    • TidyUP – makes it quick and simple to identify and delete files, folders, pages, and assignments that are no longer in use, making your Canvas course less cumbersome and easier for you and your students to use. Do this before copying current courses forward!
  • An exciting new tool is coming very soon to our Canvas – DesignPlus. If you love visually engaging, beautifully designed Canvas courses but despise the technical challenges, accessibility concerns, and time required to do that, this tool will be an option worth exploring. See the DesignPlus website for a preview! More info to come once we have it set up in our Canvas system.
  • @ONE online teaching courses are open to all California Community College faculty. Some are self-paced and available anytime. Facilitated spring courses are open for enrollment now, and are completely free. They’ll fill, so sign up now if you’re interested!
  • Submit a proposal (due Jan. 31) for the Online Teaching Conference (June 23-25, Anaheim). MiraCosta faculty who present can have all travel expenses covered from the Online Ed budget!

Happy break!

– Jim

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