Intro

In addition to the regular course sites that are available in Canvas, additional sites can also be requested on an ad-hoc basis by Harvard faculty, staff, or affiliates that do not necessarily fit into the scope of an officially offered course.

These ad-hoc sites are manually created, if they meet the requirements/criteria of either an Informal Learning Experience (ILE), or a Sandbox (SB) site.

On the occasion that the site will be accessed primarily by external users outside of the Harvard-community, the site will need to be created and accesed on the Exec Ed/Professional Ed (exed.canvas.harvard.edu) instance instead of the Residential instance of Canvas (canvas.harvard.edu).

Informal Learning Experiences (ILE) Sites

ILE's are time-bound and non-creditable learning experiences provided by Harvard faculty or staff for other members of the Harvard-community. 

Example uses of ILE's may include, but are not limited to:

• Non-credit Winter session (J-term) courses
• Workshops for students or staff that are independent or supplmental to a course or program
• Pre-matriculation sites for a specific program or course, for incoming students
• Online training site for staff that is offered internally and not appropriate through other channels such as the CWD

Sandbox (SB) Sites

Sandboxes, unlike ILE's are not time-bound and can be accessed indefinitely. As its name implies, sandbox sites are intended to be an isolated space where faculty, faculty assistants, TFs, and staff can "play" in and test course designs and layouts. 

Example uses of Sandboxes may include, but are not limited to:

• Testing and development for new LTIs/apps
• Site design and course layout testing
• Iterative site development (import course content each term, and improve the course content in the sandbox), then deploy to active course shell
• Temporarily store course content until it can be imported into the newly created course shells

Site Management & Support

Aside from the initial site creation, the Canvas Team will assist with any requests for site deletion and site resets (to initial blank state). We will add users to the site on the initial creation so that they have access to add other users to the site at their convenience.

Sandbox Limitations

Sites are limited to two sandbox sites per program / course in order to reduce redundant sites within the Canvas database.

Example: Rei teaches S-000 and would like two sandbox sites. The first sandbox site would be available on an ongoing basis where she can continue to work on site design and course content. The second site will be used as a stable environment that will be reset once the course content for the current term has been imported from the sandbox to the live production course site.

Site Creation & Process

If you would like to request a site for creation, please email canvas@gse.harvard.edu.