What is Your Home Page?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello!  For those of you who use some kind of templates (or maybe you don't use templates at all) to give your instructors a sort-of “starting point”, do you make a custom home/welcome page and set that as your “Front Page”, or do you set your Modules page to be the “Front Page”?  We are considering having Modules as our “Front Page” with a few template pages for people to build off of. What do you do at your institution?

For context, we have used a Canvas course set as a "template" that contains a few basic pages that my team has designed (they were designed before I started at my current employer).  This included a nice home/welcome page with a banner, info about the course, info about the instructor, etc.  The "template" course also included a handful of other pages to help the instructor get started creating his/her own content.  We are considering making the "Modules" page our new "Home" page instead of having a welcome page (we may still have some sort of welcome page as the very first page in the first module of the course, however).  So, I am curious to know what you do at your school/college/university.  A challenge we've had is that not all our instructors have edited their welcome page, and so when students enter the course, they see an unedited page and may get confused.

We do have DesignPLUS from Cidi Labs, and I have been playing around with some other ideas on how to possibly combine the best of both worlds...a banner at the top of a page, some course/instructor information below it, and then a tabbed interface that displays the list of modules (as tabs) and the items within each module (so that the page doesn't get incredibly long).  This page would then be designated as our "Front Page".

I'd love to hear your thoughts and/or see examples you'd be willing to share.  Thanks, in advance.

[ProfessorBeyrer]

Great question, @Chris_Hofer, and I'm excited to see what others in the Community share. At my college, we use a template for all our courses that has a custom homepage. It includes a banner image with a welcome message to the college and some text (in purple) that prompts instructors what to do ("select 'Edit' above to add information to this page...") and includes links to the Instructor Getting Started Resources page as well as our local resource website. We don't provide separate templates for our online classes but do have examples in Canvas Commons, so the text includes a suggestion to import that course for online classes. The text is self-aware, as it ends with a request to delete all the purple text before publishing. Besides that, there are prompts (not in purple text!) for instructor contact information (name, office hours, and best contact method). I don't know how many of our instructors haven't edited that page; I think most of them have copied over their course from a prior term.

[BethCrook]

We use a template with a Front Page. Although many of our faculty switch the Modules to be their front page. I wish Modules had an option to add an image at the top, to act as a welcome banner. 

[melodyc_lam]

@Chris_Hofer So at our school, we have two "templates" -- one is just for course settings, applied to sandboxes and 99.9% of the courses that get created, and then for the .1% that become blueprint courses, these get a homepage and also a "teacher resources" module that's templated into the blueprints once the blueprints get created in their special staging subaccount. Our virtual school has their own homepage template that they apply to their courses.

The special homepage just has two buttons -- one for grades (for our observers) and the other one is the "entry point" into the course. Yes, a teacher could edit their page and not use the supplied homepage but we do have curriculum specialists that support the curriculum and help us (for the most part) with making sure the homepage is correct. Having the consistent homepage helps with students knowing where to navigate to their content in any of their courses for the year.

We highly recommend not having the modules page be the first page for our courses in our district. A lot of courses will have many modules (organized by unit), and since we blueprint, all the modules for the year get added into a course. Having many modules can confuse students on where the latest information or work needs to be done, especially for our emerging readers and multilingual students, -- yes, there is the to-do list, and other methods of managing work needing to be done, but as the year/semester goes on, that page will only grow.

[JeffCampbell]

We had a similar issue where a blueprint was sent out that had various spots for teachers to insert information on a front page (with what I considered an obnoxiously oversized district logo right at the top). It also had links to other pages like Course Information and Teacher Information that also required editing (with a few policy pages too). Overwhelmingly ignored by many, likely due to how much needed to be edited. I set up some template content for those pages that first year that could import, then quickly copy and paste to update the provided pages. I started helping others set this up to simplify the process for them too. Outside of the oversized logo, it was visually easy to digest. It just had too much that needed updating. Plus, as teachers imported year to year, it quickly duplicated many pages. 

After a few years of feedback, the district finally did some updates. Instead of a blueprint module, they just have a blueprint front page. I still modify a bit (see below). The pages still require some edits, but I've seen better use by teachers now that it is only the single page. Despite the widespread use of tech in education, I still regularly run into individuals who self-identify themselves as bad with tech. Particularly at the K12 level where Canvas use may not be as familiar, simple can be better for many.

Current provided front page:

 

Example of how I modify it:

For how I modify, this is what I described in a post @KristinL had about engaging home pages :

Nothing fancy here. District provided logo at the top. The "Hello" is an animation that changes from Hello to "Welcome to PLTW." The yellow box serves as a form of announcement or daily notes. Used when I am gone to provide students with instructions. A green box for any common links currently in use. The boxes at the bottom provide common links to various resources for students. Going for simplistic since I teach middle school.

I am not using them this year because I am testing new plan, but I also have some custom made buttons for students. They navigate to overview pages for each "Lesson" (think chapters), which has similar buttons for each Activity (think lessons). I have similar buttons for each unit I teach.

[lgarmire]

We have a consistent Home page for all of our courses. It is basic information. The only thing that changes from course to course is the name of the course. We don't use templates because we run with Blueprints and associated courses. We do have a "template" course that we use when we build a new course. We just copy it in. It has the home page, and then all the items needed in our Welcome (Start Here) Module. We found when we designated a template, then did the blueprint, both ended up in the associated course. Lesson learned!

Laura

[DiannaDK]

Our K12 district has a template for courses that we roll out at the subaccount level.  It includes a consistent homepage designed to reflect each school's colors and mascot.  Also included in the template are design elements and a module with sample assignments and quizzes.  I love the consistency this creates but we've encountered two different challenges.  The first is if an instructor doesn't update the homepage.  That sends a poor message to learners and their observers.  The second challenge I hadn't considered was the pile up of duplicate pages and content as teachers continue to import all content each year.  Yikes - it gets messy! I am considering looking into blueprints, but they intimidate me and I think I have a lot to learn! 

[melodyc_lam]

Blueprints aren't that bad! If I can find time, I can maybe write up a blog post about blueprints.

Because of blueprints we have to train our teachers (and remind them) that when importing content they have to selectively import. Now with Canvas having "send to"/"copy to" directly on items it really helps with importing content selectively. The drawback with blueprints is when teachers don't selectively import, then we get tickets about how things don't load in their courses.

[DiannaDK]

That would be amazing, @melodyc_lam ! Little things like that help me get out of my head and make progress!

[cms_hickss]

We have a template that moves some things around in the navigation (it hides the built-in syllabus tool and places Simple Syllabus link under the "home" link), which works great for new teachers and/or teachers creating new content.

It fails when faculty import or copy content from elsewhere and not build (fresh) in the new shell unless that setting is also in the copied materials.

[Hildi_Pardo]

At the root account I have a simple template that only addresses certain Settings to meet certain Canvas Requirements we have (minimal course menu, and some other settings).   Schools can then choose to create their own templates to include a Home Page that meets our Canvas Requirements (plus the settings).  We review it to make sure it meets Accessibility, and we make sure it doesn't have duplicate files or assignments, etc -- since EVERYTHING gets imported.   Once it's good to go and approved, I add the template to their sub account.

For consistency we have guidelines for our Home Pages -- so while they don't all have to look exactly the same, they do need to meet our guidelines.  Teacher can still import their course from last year and push out the template's home page -- but our hope is that they see it a a model and make updates to their own, or possibly rebuild using the template home page.

Communication and Support is very important when using the Templates.  Just because they have a template doesn't mean teachers will know what to do.    But we feel strongly that having a Home Page is much more organized and welcoming than using Modules as the home page.  

Here's a blog I wrote from waaaaaay back in 2020:  Bring Clarity to your Canvas Course Part 3: Home Page

Here are some excerpts from an internal document I have about Templates for School Sub-Accounts:

Considerations / Challenges

While a template has several benefits, it also is important to be aware that by having a template imported automatically to all courses:

• You lose an opportunity to show teachers how to build a home page from scratch, which goes a long way in learning how to use various features of Canvas (RCE, linking, etc)
• You still need to provide training on how to Edit the template and/or add links to modules to the template
• You will need to show returning teachers how to import content from the previous year, and potentially re-set their Front Page/Home Page

NOTE:  If you had a School template last year, and have a template again this year, teachers who received last year’s template will end up with duplicate template content when they import their course from last year.

 

Benefits of having a Template

Challenges created by having a Template

More consistency across courses (which means a more equitable experience) Saves time for new teachers to focus energy on instruction Saves time for ITC; can focus support to other areas Takes terror away from teachers new to Canvas Makes it possible to model best practices (ie.-end scrolling down in home page to find content) Parent/student community see a more consistent visual message Teachers can learn RCE and the basics of formatting tools so they can be read by a screen reader Easier for students with cognitive challenges

Lose an opportunity to show teachers how to build a home page from scratch, which goes a long way in learning how to use various features of Canvas (RCE, linking, etc) Still have to provide training/support on how to Edit the template and add links to modules to the template May need to show returning teachers how re-set their Front Page/Home Page after importing their content from last year If you had a School template last year, and have a template again this year, teachers who received last year’s template will end up with duplicate template content when they import their course from last year (this is only if teacher imports the whole course, not if you just import modules) Some teachers may not like the template Teachers may not make their personal updates the template home page, but still use the course