Publishing Your Course
Once you have imported contents into your current semester’s course shell, you will need to Publish the course for it to be accessible to your students. Note that by default, all new semester courses are Unpublished. To publish your course visit the Home page in your MyCanvas course, there is a dropdown or toggle on the top right of the Home page. Switch the courses status from Unpublish to Publish.
Also note that even when a course is published, it will not be available for students to access until the date specified in the Starts field in Settings has passed:
Copying Content From a Blueprint/Prior Offering to a Current Course
The quickest way to get your new courses populated with all the required content, online assessments, gradebook structure, etc. is to copy such materials from either:
- The Blueprint for that course offering:
- A blueprint is a development space where the course lead and any other instructors designing or delivering the course are enrolled
- It is functionally the same as a regular course shell in MyCanvas, with the noted difference that it is not tied to a semester and students are not enrolled in it
- If you are a new instructor, it’s a good idea to inquire within the area in which you teach to see if there is a Blueprint for the course(s) you are teaching and connect with a Instructional Designer who can enroll you into the required Blueprint(s)
- Once you are enrolled in a Blueprint as a Teacher you can use it as a source for copying materials into your semester’s course shells
- A prior offering of the course from a previous semester
- Copying from a prior offering of a course as opposed to a Blueprint is normally preferable if:
- A Blueprint does not exist for a given course you are teaching
- You have taught a course previously and personalized it in that prior offering
- A prior offering is more up to date than the Blueprint
- Copying from a prior offering of a course as opposed to a Blueprint is normally preferable if:
Once you know what you wish to use as the source for the copying process, you can then copy all the materials from that course into one of your current course shells by following these steps: Copy From One Course to Another.
Organizing Your Dashboard for the Term
You can select specific courses as “favourites” to your MyCanvas Dashboard. This will help ease your navigation of MyCanvas each term. By making the courses you are currently teaching or about to teach a favourite, these courses will appear on your Dashboard. It is recommended that you organize your Dashboard each term. Only courses from the current semester, a future enrollment, or continuous courses, like a Blueprint or Sandbox, can be favourited.
Click on All Courses, either above your published courses or at the bottom of the Courses section in the Global Navigation, to find a list of all the courses you are enrolled in.
Find the courses you would like to favourite. Courses for the current semester will be in the top section, while those for the up-coming semester will be in the bottom section called Future Enrollments.
Course Registration Number (CRN) and Term Code
All courses offered each semester are identified by a unique 11 digit number. This is the easiest way to identify a specific course in a given semester.
- Course Registration Number (CRN): Unique to every course in a given semester. When combined with the term code provides a unique identifier for every course in MyCanvas.
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Term Code:
- First 4 digits correspond to the current year
- Fifth digit is the current term:
- 1 – Winter
- 2 – Spring/Summer
- 3 – Fall
- Sixth digit is the delivery method:
- 0 – Continuing Education
- 3 – Apprenticeship
- 5 – Post-Secondary
CRN (see example)
The first 5 digits are the CRN and the Term Code is 202533 (Year: 2025, Term: 3 = Fall, Delivery Method: 3 = Apprenticeship).
Favouriting Courses
Click on the All Courses link and locate the course(s) you would like to favourite by enabling the star on the left hand side of the course title to make it orange. It will now appear on your MyCanvas Dashboard.