A guide for Adler University Faculty in navigating merged sections in Canvas
Introduction:
Each term, Adler’s Educational Design & Innovation (EDI) team oftentimes encounters multiple sections of a given course taught by the same instructor in Canvas. In effort to create an experience of convenience within the LMS for these instructors, the EDI team would, prior to start of term, manually move all similar section student enrollments into one chosen section for the instructor in question. This convenience, however, has proved somewhat detrimental for university operations outside of Canvas. To explain further, these enrollments, after their move, are lost to our data integration software that is otherwise built to pull & edit all enrollment details from the Colleague system into Canvas. As you might imagine, this creates a variety of problems for students & Adler staff. Students, for example, who elect to drop from course sections inside the Colleague system, for example, are no longer able to see themselves as dropped from the specified section in Canvas. With your cooperation as Adler faculty, though, we are excited to roll out what we have found to be a very viable, and equally convenient, alternative to this former method. It is, essentially, known as a course section merge function within Canvas. Not much additional is required of you as an instructor of these sections, but to better illustrate how this will look inside Canvas from your perspective as faculty, please review the below ‘Before’ & ‘After’ screenshots from inside the LMS:
Prior to 2021 Fall in the LMS:
To further illustrate the previous approach taken by the EDI team, we have included the below two screenshots from the LMS Faculty Dashboard for two similar course sections taught by Dr. Sheri Lewis in the 2021GU2 term.
A. In this example, the EDI team manually moves all Social Justice Practicum I enrollments to the main section (SJP-515-A) for Dr. Lewis. This allows the instructor to only click one tile to access all student & section details, regardless of section a student has enrolled in within Colleague
B. As you can see in the screenshot below, however, the related section (SJP-515-B) remains unpublished & unused in the LMS Dashboard for Dr. Lewis during the 2021GU2 term
2021 Fall Term, and Beyond, in the LMS:
To illustrate the improved method for approaching these situations in the LMS, we have included screenshots for a 2021FAL course (and its two similar sections) that we have already configured as a section merge in the LMS. These sections are set to be taught by the same instructor, DeLinda Terry.
1. Section 1: MIO-502-AFA1 – Organizational Theory
2. Section 2: MIO-502-PRFA1 – Organizational Theory
STEP 1: As you can see, the Course for the Term in Question from your Dashboard in the LMS
STEP 2: Once you’ve accessed the course’s home page, scroll down until you reach the ‘Settings’ option in the left menu
STEP 4: Notice that both sections now appear after clicking the ‘Sections’ option in the top menu bar