[ARCHIVED] Are courses automatically added to a user's dashboard?

[mmitchell]

I may be crazy, but I've assumed for a while now that whenever a new semester starts (I'm in higher ed), a user's active courses automatically jump onto their Dashboard without them having to star anything and that previous courses move into Past Enrollments.

We opened a ticket with Canvas support because we had a Fall course that didn't show up on student dashboards and they said that it isn't an automatic process, that users always have to star courses no matter what semester you're starting or finishing.

I plan on watching what happens when our Spring semester launches on January 9th, 2017, but do any of you know if this happens automatically?

Note: We have an SIS integration with Banner, so courses, users, and course enrollments are mostly automated.

Thanks!

[garth · Accepted solution]

 @mmitchell ​ testing I have done shows that the Dashboard will only show 12 courses. It has been a while, but I think it's 12.  Point being, there is a limit to the number of courses that will "automatically" appear. 

If a student has more than 12 active courses, it is up to the student to tell Canvas which 12 courses they want to see on their dashboard.  That's where the "stars" come in to play, the student will need to click on "All Courses" and select their preferred courses:

• How do I customize my Courses list?​

Once a course is complete it should drop off the Dashboard and make room for new courses.

Expired courses will then appear in the "Past Enrollments" section:

• How do I view my Canvas courses?

I hope this helps.

[QC99_tsilvius]

We've also found that if you have any courses set as a favorite even just one, newly-added courses won't display on the Dash. They are added to the user account but are available in Course/All Courses making it appear to the unfamiliar user that they are not in the course that is auto-generated from our SIS integration with PowerSchool. Another scenario is that a user is manually enrolled in a course, they receive the enrollment invitation to accept or decline, and once it's accepted they enter the course during that session but then wen they go to return, since it's not favorited yet, it lies in their Courses/All Courses making it a bit of a hide-and-seek process for class participants when they return.

[mmitchell]

 @garth ​ and QC99.tsilvius​ thank you both for responding. Putting this information together along with what we've seen helps us sort of know what happens when a new semester starts.

We're going to keep our eyes on our dashboards for Spring semester. For us, that will be January 9th. We'll have several scenarios set up to see how dashboards change and will post anything of interest here.

Mike