Use this article when creating a new course site in Canvas.
Course site types:
Academic (PeopleSoft-associated) Course Sites with Enrollments
- Academic sites are automatically generated prior to the start of each term and will appear on your Canvas Dashboard (https://canvas.umn.edu). Auto-enrollment begins for Fall and Spring semesters later than the auto-creation dates. For more information, refer to Understand When Academic Course Sites are Available for the Upcoming Semester.
- If you are an instructor and you don't see an academic site on your Canvas Dashboard, reach out to your local Department/PeopleSoft scheduler to ensure that your role and course association are accurate in PeopleSoft.
- Instructors who want a sandbox Canvas site to draft course materials and/or play around with Canvas features before adding them to an academic site can request a Non-academic (non-PeopleSoft) in this article. Follow the instructions for Standard sites.
Training Hub Course Sites with Enrollments
- If you are a Training Hub administrator, use the instructions below to create development sites.
- Development sites: While you are working on building a new course site, good practice is to use a development site. Request a development site using the process for requesting non-academic sites in the next section.
- Production Training Hub Canvas sites: Once your course site is ready for learners, copy the development site into a production site.
- Create the production site directly through Training Hub. Do not use the process below.
- Get more information about Training Hub.
- Learn how to copy content from a Canvas development site to a production site.
- Learn how to create a Canvas production site through Training Hub.
Non-Academic (Non-PeopleSoft) Sites
- Standard sites: Standard sites are for non-academic uses, including:
- development/sandbox
- training
- collaboration
- courses/conferences that do not bear formal academic credit.
- Destiny One sites: Destiny One is used for training. In some cases, such as conferences, the LMS course is a repository of information made available to registrants and provides a collaboration mechanism.
Request Standard or Destiny One sites using the Course Request tool in Canvas Help.
Requesting a Non-Academic (Non-PeopleSoft) Site
- Log into canvas.umn.edu
- Select Help in the global navigation menu on the left.
- Select Course Request (Non-academic) to launch the course request tool
- Select Standard or Destiny One.
- Enter a Course name and Short name.
- Select an Institution or Primary Account
- Select a College or Secondary Account.
- If prompted, select Department or Tertiary Account
- Note: As the requester, you are automatically assigned the role of Teacher, to provide you with the best possible permission set while creating the course. If you are a Designer, add your Designer role now to the same row that lists you as a Teacher, and then remove your Teacher role from the people page after the course is created.
- Optional: Enroll another user in your site by entering their email address under Grand Role(s) to Additional Users and selecting + Add Email. Their email address will be added to the form. Select a role in the Role Options column. Repeat to add more users.
- Select Make Request to generate the course. A site will be created immediately.
- A link to the course will appear at the top of the form along with confirmation of the users you enrolled.
- The site will also appear on your Canvas Dashboard.
Additional Resources
Design Considerations for Canvas Courses Integrated with Destiny One