Organizing Content

An Introduction to Organizing Content

Canvas is designed to organize content within Modules and we strongly advise working with Canvas as it is designed. By organizing content within Modules you are making the site consistent with other course sites at HGSE that students will interact with. Modules are easy to manage, update, transfer from one course to another, and have some powerful features that we will touch on below.

Many instructors wish to add links to pages in the left-hand course navigation bar and find it strange that this is not easy to accomplish. This is a deliberate design decision to encourage the use of Modules, which students prefer.

Intro to Modules

Modules in Canvas can be immensely powerful tools when they're fully configured. What can modules offer you?

Controlled Course Flow and Granularity

You can create a linear progression by organizing course content using modules; After organizing content into modules, pre-requisites or requirements can be implemented to strictly enforce linear progression within the course.

Students also have the option of navigating back and forth between completed module items for reference.

Module items can also be locked until they are ready to be viewed by students, in addition to configuring pre-requisites and requirements.

Centralized Access

By aggregating all course content in one location, students will spend less time figuring out where different links and content reside, and more time learning.

This also makes managing content for TFs, faculty assistants, and the instructor easier since the content will be accessible in a centralized location.

If requirements and pre-requisites are configured, TFs and teaching staff are able to track and view progress of a student based on the completion of modules.

Organizational Flexibility

Entire module containers can easily be reorganized by simply dragging and dropping. Individual module items can also be re-ordered without having to move the whole module container.

Up to 3 levels of indentation are available to simulate nesting/hierarchical structuring.

Creating new content for a module can quickly be done from within the Modules Index Page. It is not necessary to navigate to Files, Pages, Discussions, or Quizzes to create or add new content.

Process Overview

1. On the modules page, create the module "container" that will house the individual module items.
2. Add new or pre-existing content to a module container -- this content is referred to as a module item
3. Confirm that module items are ready to be published, then publish.
4. Configure the module container with any requirements or prerequisites if necessary and make any final adjustments.
5. Publish the module container.
6. Make sure the Modules tab/link is available to students in the course navigation menu if desired.