Online and OER/ZTC tips and opportunities – Oct 2026

Dear faculty colleagues,

I hope your October is more treat than trick so far! I have some timely online-related things to share with you, and below, see the latest from the ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI) – some good overview webinars this month on finding OER, using Creative Commons licensing, AI and OER, and UDL and OER. 

  • Any questions about MiraCosta’s new Distance Education Certification / Recertification? Don’t hesitate to contact me!
  • CCC Online Teaching Conference – this year will be in Anaheim June 28-30
  • Perusall just kicked off a “4-week virtual, author-facilitated reading experience with author Flower Darby” focused on her book, The Joyful Online Teacher. Learn more on the Perusall event site(there is a small cost to gain access to the eBook).
  • SDCCD invites area faculty to attend part of all of their free annual DE Summit – Amplifying Human Potential: Designing Learning Experiences That Reveal, Empower, and Challenge Students
    • Friday, November 13, 8 am – 2 pm at their North City Campus Rm #101 or Online via Zoom
    • The day features a keynote speaker (Jenae Cohn – she’s great), student panel on their experiences in Canvas, faculty showcases, and more. Breakfast and lunch are provided for in-person attendees. Register here.

 Please let me know if you have any questions about anything online or OER/ZTC related!

– Jim Julius
Faculty Coordinator, Online Education

• Back to Basics – Getting Started with Open Educational Resources (OER)•

Tuesday, October 13, 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Back to Basics: Finding Open Educational Resources (OER)
Curious about OER and you don’t know where to start? Join us to start your OER discovery journey. Where can you find existing OER for your discipline? Join us to learn how to find OER – and options to consider when you can’t find anything.
Register for Back to Basics: Finding OER

• Creative Commons (CC) Licensing •

What exactly is a Creative Commons license – and what does it do? Whether you are new to the OER space or struggling to select the right license, we have a webinar for you.

Wednesday, October 21, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Introduction to Creative Commons Licensing
Understanding Creative Commons licensing is critical when working with open educational resources. In this interactive webinar, we’ll explore the nuances of the various Creative Commons licenses for when a resource is used, adapted, or created.
Register for Introduction to Creative Commons Licensing

Wednesday, October 21, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Curation and Advanced Licensing
How do you remix and attribute content with different open licenses? How are collections and remixes different and why does it matter? This interactive session is intended for those who are familiar with the Creative Commons licenses and would like to expand their understanding. Bring your questions and licensing challenges.
Register for Curation and Advanced Licensing

• Interactive Office Hours: Artificial Intelligence (AI) •

Join the OERI’s AI Lead, Liz Encarnacion, for a series of interactive office hours centered around using AI to create and adapt OER.

Thursday, October 22, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Office Hour: Accessibility for Open Educational Resources (OER)
Join this interactive office hour focused on accessibility questions and concerns when using generative AI to create, adapt, and share OER. Engage in discussion around reviewing AI-generated text, images, alt text, documents, and other course materials for accessibility prior to publishing or adopting. Bring your questions and draft materials as this office hour will provide practical guidance, peer support, and strategies for ways to use AI-enabled technology responsible to keep accessibility in the forefront of our OER work.
Register for AI Office Hour: Accessibility for OER

Thursday, November 5, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Office Hour: AI Resilient Assessments for Courses Using Open Educational Resources (OER) 
Join this interactive office hour that will focus on designing AI-resilient assessments for OER and OER-based courses. Bring your assessments and OER material that need the most support to workshop practical solutions that emphasize authentic learning, student process, reflection, application, and meaningful demonstration of course outcomes. We will discuss how the flexibility of OER can be used to create accessible, equitable, and AI-aware assessments that support learning, rather than just simply detecting AI use.
Register for AI Office Hour: AI Resilient Assessments for OER Courses

• Universal Design for Learning and Open Educational Resources •

Thursday, October 29, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Beyond Compliance to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for Open Educational Resources (OER)
How do we create OER that meet the needs of our diverse student body? UDL helps us build resources that maximize student access, engagement, and learning. Focusing on UDL also places accessibility guidelines in a context that aids us in achieving those goals.  From describing complex graphics to providing multiple modalities for content, UDL offers a framework that supports us in creating resources which best serve our students. Open Educational Pedagogy (OEP) can take us to the next level by empowering students to participate in content creation that solidifies their learning and critical thinking – and it also improves our OER for future students.
Register for Beyond Compliance to UDL of OER

Online Education Workshop Archives

Flex Credit is available for viewing MiraCosta online workshop archives. Contact the Professional Development Program / Flex for more information.

If you require improved captions for any of the video recordings below, please contact Jim Julius.

Fall 2026

Fall 26: New and Next Series

Spring 2026

Spring 26: DesignPLUS Train and Play Series

Fall 2025

Spring 2025

Fall 2024

Spring 2024

Fall 2023

Spring 2023

Fall 2022

Spring 2022

Fall 2021

Spring 2021

Equity Online: Celebrating Our Collaborative Work In Progress

Flex Week

Fall 2020

Summer 2020

Canvas Basics

Additional recorded zoom sessions and online teaching guides from Summer 2020 can be viewed within the PROJECT Online Teaching Foundations Canvas course.

Spring 2020

Fall 2019

Spring 2019

Fall 2018

Spring 2018

Fall 2017

Spring 2017

Fall 2016

Reset Your Canvas Course Content

Overview

From time to time, you may want to delete all of the content in a Canvas course site. This is most typically needed early in the course building process. For example, after importing content from another course, you may realize that you imported from the wrong course. The directions described below will delete all content from your course site, but leave the course roster intact.

Warning about Deleting All Course Content

WARNING: This step deletes all existing content from your course. Take steps to preserve any content you want to keep (for example, copy and paste to a Word doc, copy select course elements to a sandbox course, import the course into another empty shell, etc.) before proceeding. DO NOT complete these steps in a current term course that is currently in process!

Reset Course Content in a Canvas Course

Canvas Guide: How do I reset course content?

1. Navigate to the course with the content you wish to delete.

2. From the course navigation menu, click the Settings link.

Settings

3. In the sidebar, click the Reset Course Content link.

Reset Course Content

4. Click the Reset Course Content button.

A completely new course shell with a new ID (the number following “https://miracosta.instructure.com/courses/…”) will be generated. All users previously enrolled in the course will remain enrolled.

Made a Mistake?

If for some reason you reset your course and it was a mistake report it as soon as possible. We have Test and Beta instances of Canvas we may be able to refer to for the content and/or to restore the original course.

Contact Karen Turpin, Instructional Technology Specialist at [email protected] or Canvas Faculty Support 24/7 at 1- 833-345-2890 for assistance.

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 [email protected]. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘TLC Staff ‘ Canvas role.
  • Community Education Student: Contact Karen Turpin at [email protected]. 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.

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.
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