[ARCHIVED] Two Questions

[Howardj77]

Hello,

I am new Teaching Assistant at University of Missouri St. Louis in the Biology department. I have two questions about ways to perform actions in my course.

1.) I have multiple sections of my lab course that I teach. Sections 10, 11, and 12. I noticed on Canvas that there is no obvious way to post something to all three sister sections, even when the information is exactly the same. For example, if I post an announcement about an upcoming quiz in section 10, I have to then copy that material, go to section 11 paste and submit it, then go to section 12 and paste and submit it. This has to be done for literally everything (updates/announcements/changes to schedule) and is needlessly time consuming. Is there a way to post something to multiple/all sections at once?

2.) For the course summary under the Syllabus section that has all the assignment dates, I noticed that to change the day something is due/occurs on, you can't just click the date column on the left and type in the new date for all the assignments in that section, you have to go into the calendar and drag them one by one to the new date, which reloads the page everytime you move one thing. Like with #1, this takes up a tremendous amount of time and I feel like there is possibly an easier way. Is there a method to update the course summary dates quickly? One where the calendar just auto-updates after you make changes to the course summary?

Thank you for your time and consideration in these matters,

Jeremy Howard

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there, @Howardj77...

I think I can help answer both of your question.

1. For all three courses (Sections 10, 11, and 12), do those three courses all have the same content in them?  If this is true, you might want to investigate cross-listing your courses together.  Cross-listing moves all enrollments (instructors and students) from one course to another.  It does not move content...it only moves enrollments.  So, for example, you could cross-list all three courses together so that all enrollments appear within Section 10 of your course.  Within your "People" page of your course, you would still be able to identify which students are part of Section 10, Section 11, and Section 12.  If you are not able to cross-list courses on your own, you would want to have a conversation with your school's local Canvas administrator or someone from your school's Online Learning/eLearning department to see if they would be able to do this for you.  Check out these two Guides...paying particular attention to the information at the top in the blue box:
   • How do I cross-list a section in a course as an instructor?
   • How do I de-cross-list a section in a course as an instructor?
2. Not too long ago, Canvas released a new feature that allows you to change due dates for your assignments all on one screen.  At this time, you can only fill in dates (not times) for the assignment due dates.  Here's a Guide to look through: How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?.

I hope these resources will be of help to you.  Sing out if you have any other questions about this info...thanks!  Take care, stay safe, and be well.