Standardized content across multiple courses

[kylecage0]

Looking for ways to manage "global pages" across many different courses. These could be student resource pages, how-to guides, assignment instructions, or library tutorials - things that need to go into every course in a particular program, or even every course at the university. 

I guess I'm looking for something comparable to Blackboard Modules

Ever since migrating to Canvas, we've just been hard-coding HTML files, uploading them to our server, then embedding the pages into Canvas pages using iframe tags. It's been working fine for the most part, but lately we've been needing to make more frequent updates to some of the pages, so we're looking for an easier process. We're also starting to use these "global pages" for assignment instructions in certain programs where multiple courses are doing the same assignment. 

I tested Canvas Commons to see what the process would look like, and it's not going to work. We have 100+ sections of some of the nursing courses running every semester. Let's say I have a global page in NURS 100, NURS 120, NURS 180, NURS 200, and NURS 220. I need to update the page. There are multiple live sections of each of those courses running this semester. I don't want to enroll myself in the live courses, import the updated page from Commons, then unenroll myself from all those courses. 

I'm looking at things like Wordpress, Wix, or Canva to create web pages that could more easily be updated without us having to go into our server and re-upload the HTML files every time we need to make an update. Just wondering if anyone else has been doing anything like this and if so, what's your process?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @kylecage0 ...

Have you explored DesignPLUS from Cidi Labs?  If not, I'd highly recommend that you do this!  DesignPLUS is a paid add-on to Canvas, and you wouldn't need to keep hard-coding HTML files, uploading them to your server, and then embedding them onto Canvas pages using iframes.  (Gosh, that sounds like a lot of work!)  DesignPLUS is really powerful in that it helps you design course pages without needing to know any code...as most everything in it is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).  You should also check out their Showcase Page to see examples of what different schools have designed for their own course pages.

DesignPLUS lets you build banners, content blocks, and other elements to design full course content pages within the Canvas RCE (Rich Content Editor).  From a Canvas administrator perspective, you can create all kinds of content within what they call a "Primary Customizations Course".  This course is where admins can add things like content blocks, banners, link grids, and templates that all instructors in the Canvas account would be able to bring into their own course content pages.  So, it's entirely possible to design templates and content pages that have a similar look and feel...or that have some common elements that all courses should have, and then instructors can bring that information into their own courses.

In addition to the main primary customizations course, you can have a customizations course at each of your sub-account levels.  This means that if you had content that you wanted only an "Accounting" sub-account (for example) to have access to, you could build that content into the "Accounting" customizations course, and it would only be available for those instructors who have access to courses in that sub-account.

There's just so much to explain...and really too much to provide in detail here, but I'd encourage you to check out the links that I've provided above.  Also, I'd encourage you to watch some of the videos here: Webinars | Cidi Labs.

With your Canvas Commons idea...if you had a course where you had shared a page to Commons and then people imported that page into their own Canvas courses, you could update that page in your own course.  Then, you could re-share that page to Canvas Commons.  Then, other people would go to Canvas Commons and see a message stating that a page had been updated...and prompted if they wanted to apply the updated page to their own course(s).  It's kind of an "update once, distribute to many" approach.

Anyway...I hope some of this information will be helpful to you as you explore your options!

[kylecage0]

Hi @Chris_Hofer,

Yes, we have looked into Cidi Labs in the past when we were exploring design tools for creating a standard look and feel for pages and assignments. It's a fantastic product, but I don't think we explored the "Primary Customizations Course" features. That sounds like it could potentially work, but I'd have to see what the process looks like with Blueprint. We have a Blueprint parent course for every course, so that's where we develop the courses. Our faculty don't build their own courses each semester; all the live courses are tied back to their Blueprint parent course template. We (the ID team) make the needed changes or additions to the template (parent) course and sync it with all its associated live (child) courses. This is why the Commons idea doesn't quite work for us. I'm enrolled as teacher in all the nursing course templates (parent courses), but I would have to enroll myself in all the child courses every time I needed to update one of these global pages.

I'll look into Cidi Labs again but specifically to explore the primary customization course option that you mentioned. That sounds pretty similar to the Blackboard Modules tool we were using back in the day. When we explored it before as a potential design tool, the university ended up deciding to go with SoaringEd's Loree Design tool instead. It's great for designing "pretty" pages and assignment instructions, and it's got some nice interactive features comparable to Articulate Rise, but it does not have an option for managing "global" content like what we're doing with the embedded iframe content right now. Again, I think the complication for us comes from using Canvas Blueprint to manage the standardized course curriculum. Faculty only have limited Canvas permissions that allow them to create announcements and discussions, and in certain programs they are able to make edits to specific assignments and quizzes, but they would not be able to edit or import pages, which is why Commons would be tricky. 

Thanks for the tip! I'll take another look at Cidi Labs but I'm not sure the university will go for it at this point since we are using a different design tool.

[BrianLester]

If your institution uses Google you (or the teachers of the sections ) could embed google docs. Then instead of having to edit many individual Canvas pages you would just edit the relevant google doc