Academic Course creation workflow

Academic Courses are provisioned automatically in Canvas, following the workflow below.
A new Course is created for the semester the course is scheduled. The Course is created as an empty shell. Please import content from a previous semester, if needed.

FAQs

1 Why do I not see a Course that I am teaching?
2 Why do I see a Course that I am not teaching?
3 What is the timeline for creation of Canvas Course?
4 Where does Canvas draw course, student and staff information from?
- 4.1 Course-related information
- 4.2 Demographic information
5 Why do I see instructors from the previous semester listed as inactive?
6 Can I create a Canvas Course to develop content and test features?
7 As an administrative support staff, how can I assist faculty members in managing their Courses in Canvas?

Why do I not see a Course that I am teaching?

There may be several reasons for not seeing a Course that you will be teaching.

Please expand and follow these troubleshooting steps:

Why do I see a Course that I am not teaching?

If you are seeing a Course for a course that you are not teaching, it is because you are listed as the Lecturer for the course in the CMIS, a system for used at NUS for timetabling purposes from where Canvas draws this information. Please contact your CMIS departmental contact, and they will be able to update CMIS. Changes made through CMIS will be reflected in Canvas the following day.

What is the timeline for creation of Canvas Course?

The table below gives an estimate of when the new Canvas Courses will be made available in Canvas by semester for every academic year.

Semester	New Course Creation in Canvas

Semester	New Course Creation in Canvas
Semester 1^*	April (4 months before Week 1)
Semester 2	September (4 months before Week 1) [2420] courses will be created on 3 Oct 2024 at earliest due to external developments.
Special Term 1	March (2 months before Term Start)
Special Term 2	March (2 months before Term Start of Special Term 1)

^* The timeline refers to the first sync. The daily sync for semester 1 only occurs from June, and until then periodic manual syncs occur every week.

Where does Canvas draw course, student and staff information from?

Canvas draws information and data from various data sources at NUS such as

EduRec (Education Records system),
CMIS (timetabling system),
Oracle and
CMS (Curriculum Management System).

The tables below provide detailed information on what data is synced, the source from which it is synced, where they can be found in Canvas and the frequency at which the data is synced.

Course-related information

Data	Where in Canvas	Synced from	Sync Frequency

Data	Where in Canvas	Synced from	Sync Frequency
Course Information Course Code Course Name Course Term Course Faculty & Department Course Start and End Date	Course settings	EduRec	Daily
Officially Cross-Listed Courses	Course settings	EduRec	Daily
Course Groups	People Sections Tab in Course Settings	EduRec	Daily
Student Enrolment	People Sections Tab in Course Settings	EduRec	Daily
Class Lecturers (Teachers assigned to course, specific course section, and tutorial groups)	People Sections Tab in Course Settings	CMIS	Daily: Across semesters within the same AY or within the current semester: Daily sync. Across AYs: Biweekly until mid-June. Daily sync across AYs commence mid-June.

Demographic information

Data	Where in Canvas	Synced from	Sync Frequency

Data	Where in Canvas	Synced from	Sync Frequency
Student Data Official Name Preferred Name NUSNET ID Student Number Email	Profile People	EduRec	Daily
Student Photo	Profile	Student photo verification system (Oracle)	Daily
Staff Data Official Name Preferred Name Staff Number Email	Profile	CHRS	Daily
Staff NUSNET ID	Profile	Oracle	Daily
Staff Photo	Profile	NUS staff photo system (Oracle)	Daily

Why do I see instructors from the previous semester listed as inactive?

Instructors removed from a course are listed as inactive. This is not an error.

Students do not see the inactive instructors (nor students) in the course.
Inactive instructors (and students) do not have access to the course.

Can I create a Canvas Course to develop content and test features?

All faculty and staff at NUS are provided with a Sandbox Course which you can use to explore, experiment, develop content and test features.

Once you have content developed, you can easily copy them to your other Canvas Courses.
To copy, go to your Course where you want the content copied into, then select Import Existing Content.

You can also easily reset the course content for your sandbox course, when you want to develop content for a new course. To reset, click on your sandbox course, go to settings, select Reset Course Content.

As an administrative support staff, how can I assist faculty members in managing their Courses in Canvas?

Alternatively, if administrative support staff only assist in managing specific Courses, they can request the faculty member to provide access to their Courses.