Working with sub-accounts and themes

[GinaAsalon]

Hi everyone! This is a multi-tiered question, so bear with me!

I am working with a department outside of my own to create a handful of courses. They are wanting a way to create a "channel" with a specific email address so that all participants can be added once and have access to all courses in this "channel". I have told them that this is not how Canvas works, but I am open to suggestions on how we can get close to achieving this.

I have recommended that they set up a sub-account and use the Theme editor to brand it according to their own colors/logo. That way, when they enroll their participants into the seven courses, the participants will see their branding and all courses in that sub-account.

But that got me wondering about something else. My own department has a sub-account with our own theme colors. So what does the dashboard look like if, for example, a participant is enrolled in two courses, but each course is from a different sub-account with different themes?

I hope all of this makes sense! Let me know if I need to clarify anything!

Thank you!

Gina

[Jeff_F · Accepted solution]

Hello @GinaAsalon - for the first question, one possible approach is to create the courses and configure the settings in the courses so that students can self enroll. Then collect all the links that contain the enroll code and add them to a page in a single course and manage the enrollments in that course only. That way the Department is sure all students are enrolled to the primary course. This approach enables students to 'opt in' to all the courses set for self enrollment. See the 'View Additional Details' section toward the bottom of this page: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-set-details-for-a-course/ta-p/1037 

Another approach is to configure the visibility to be 'Public' or 'Institution'. But that works only if actual enrollment isn't needed. For example, students are just accessing pages to read the content and aren't engaging in discussions, posting assignments, etc. If the latter is needed then enrollments are necessary.

Regarding theme branding, as far as I am aware, there is no effect of subaccount branding upon the dashboard. Granted, images can be added and the course naming convention may vary, but these are course level elements and are unrelated to the subaccount theme. To illustrate, below is my dashboard. The courses shown are within 4-5 different subaccounts and some of these have slightly different branding from the norm. On that note, for the most part we've found students appreciate consistency. For example, a consistent approach to using Modules, listing items on the course navigation menu in a certain way, etc. While Departments can get super creative with a theme, sometimes uniqueness can be a distraction or perhaps a hindrance. 

My Dashboard

[GinaAsalon]

Hi Jeff! Thank you so much for your detailed reply! Your solution to keeping all courses together by enrolling in a primary course is a very interesting one! I don't think it will work for this department (I don't think they want to enable self-erollment), but it's a good option to keep in mind for future courses.

Thank you also for clarifying that the theme will reflect the root account's theme - it seems so obvious now that that would be the case. I had recommended to the dept. awhile ago that designing the thumbnails with a consistent theme/logo would be the way to go, so I will let them know that this seems to be the best solution.

I appreciate your help, Jeff!

Warmly,

Gina