Canvas Course Merge and DLC FAQ

Tips and tricks regarding merging courses plus a complete guide for DLC courses’ section merge

Please read first: Before and after merging courses
1. How do I merge my courses?

You can find the step-by-step instructions here: Merge and Unmerge Courses

2. Will I lose course content after having it merged?
No, as long as you choose the section that has course content as the “base course.” This improvement is the result of a Canvas update a few months ago. Still, we recommend export the course content before merging the course, just in case of a mistake.
3. A Complete Guide for Preparing DLC Courses

Background

In a DLC (digital learning cooperative) course, your students may come from multiple campuses. The first student from a campus registers for your course triggers the creation of a campus-specific section in LionPath. For example, if 3 students are from the Berks campus, 1 student from Abington, and the rest are from Erie, you will see three campus-specific sections under your Canvas account – Berks, Abington, and Erie. Since we cannot control when students choose to enroll in your class, it is possible to see a new section created before the add/drop period ends.

If you have merged Erie and Berks sections before the Abington student registered for the class, you will need to add the newly-created section to the merged course (see the portion titled Add Another Section to a Merged Course) so that the Abington student can have access. Once you have the Abington roster in the merged course, additional Abington students, if any, will be automatically added to your class.

Tips for DLC instructors

  1. Do not merge the course too early. We ask DLC instructors to hold on merging the multiple-campus sections because every time the first student from a campus enrolls in your class, a new section of your course is created in Canvas. This means DLC courses merged early may not have included these new sections, and students in these sections do not have your class material. A late course merge will reduce (not eliminate) the chance of overlooking these randomly generated sections.
  2. Keep an eye on new course sections created by new enrollment. It should stabilize after the add/drop period ends. Then use Add Another Section to a Merged Cours to include the new sections. 
  3. Keep in mind that course merge is actually the merge of rosters, thus do not manually add students to your course and leave the rosters unmerged.

To prepare the DLC content material without merging

  1. Request a manually enrolled course in Canvas;
  2. Upload content material to the manually enrolled course;
  3. As enrollment stabilizes, merge all course sections into one;
  4. Copy course material over from the manual course to the merged course; 
  5. Publish the merged course and start the semester. 
  6. If new sections are created during add/drop, simply Edit a Merged Course to include the new sections. Adding new sections to the merged course will not lead to content loss.
    Very Important: a). Do not prepare course content in a section that will be merged later. Unless chosen as the “base” of the merged course, merging that section will wipe off its content. b). Do not use the manually enrolled course to teach because these courses do not exist in LionPath and students will not receive a grade. c). The roster of the individual sections in a merged course will update automatically when add/drop occurs.

If you already merged a few sections of a DLC course

  1. You can continue preparing the content in the merged course shell.
  2. Before publishing the merged course, add the additional “new sections” to the existing merged course. Adding new sections will not cause content loss.
  3. If new sections are created during add/drop, you can add another section to a merged course to include the new sections. Adding new sections will not cause content loss. 
    Very Important: a). Please keep the merged course unpublished during course prep so that they are invisible to students. b). Do not bypass LionPath to manually add a student to a merged course. Students who intend to take your class should register at LionPath first. c). The roster of the individual sections in a merged course will update automatically when add/drop occurs. 
4. Can I allow an assignment to have individual due dates for each section?
Yes. While creating the assignment in the Assign to box you can choose a section. You will get a warning message that not all sections will be assigned an item. Also, the number of due dates each assignment can have is limited by the number of original sections merged into the course. Therefore, if your students are spread across 3 lectures but 5 labs, merging the 5 lab sections will give you up to 5 due dates for each lab assignment, whereas merging the 3 lecture sections will only give you up to 3 due dates for each lab report.
5. I teach 2 sections of a course. Students attend the lecture together but they come to labs in 4 sections due to limited room capacity. Which sections should I merge, the 2 lectures or the 4 labs? Is there a difference?
Yes, there is a difference. The question is how many due date options would you need to have for students in the merged lecture or lab class? The number of original sections in the merged course decides the number of due date options you can have.

We recommend merge the higher number of sections and use that merged course space for teaching. In this case, we recommend merge the 4 sections of labs. This way, for each lab assignment you can have 4 specific due dates, one for each original lab section. If you merged the 2 lectures, you will only have 2 different due dates for each lab assignment.

Note: DO NOT try to unmerge the lectures and remerge the labs in the middle of the semester. If you change your base course you will lose all student-generated information, including submissions, posts, and grades.

6. Can I add or remove a section after a course is merged? Can I unmerge a course?
Yes. Check out this article: Merge and Unmerge Courses
7. Under People, can I sort students and their ID pictures by section?

Canvas doesn’t sort student pictures by section. However, you can display a selected section of students in the gradebook by using Apply Filters and sort and display student data.  

8. Can I tell which student is from which section when manually assigning them to different project groups?
No. Canvas does not display that information. We recommend manually creating Group Sets for each section, then creating groups within each section.
9. Can I still send Canvas emails to students in the individual sections after the merge?

Yes. You can do this in the Inbox in Canvas by composing a new message, selecting the course, and in the dropdown menu in the To: field selecting the course section.

Please be aware that your roster may still be changing at the beginning of the semester. Students who joined the class late will not see the course emails sent earlier. Therefore, we recommend communicating with the class via Canvas Announcements which will always be available for everyone in the class. If you don’t want students to comment on course announcements, you can disable the commenting feature.

10. In the merged gradebook, can I see student grades by section? What about in SpeedGrader?

Yes, filtered displaying can be done by using Apply Filters in the grade book. Furthermore, you can sort and display student data. 

Yes, in SpeedGrader, go to any student submission, click on the student’s name, and then click Show All Sections.  You can switch to a different section in the same way.