Hooray! New Course Request Form!

It’s Here!

Children skipping and jumping up a hill.
The New Course Request Form is available now! Hooray!

The Courseware Support Team is happy to announce that our new Course Request Form is available to users! To access the Form, please go to Link to Course Request Form (same URL as the old form).

What’s New?

Here are some aspects of the New Form that we think you’ll love:

New Navigation

The newly designed interface simplifies navigation. You can access your list of Canvas sites for request from the homepage (click on Main to access if you have navigated from the homepage) or by clicking on Courses under “Browse.”

 Image of CRF side navigation with arrow pointing at the "Courses" link.
Click on “Courses” to Request Canvas sites.

Also on the the homepage, you can see your recent requests under “Site Requests” and links to all of you existing Canvas sites and export .zip files for Blackboard sites (Instructions: Using Blackboard Exports) in the “Existing Course Sites” section.

To request a Canvas site for a course, simply click on the link for it from either of the locations (homepage or Courses). Please click on the following screenshot for an example.

Screenshot of site-request interface.
Click on course number to request a Canvas site.

New Features

After selecting a course, a form will open, and you will have the option to apply settings to the Canvas site so that it is configured to your liking. All of the old settings remain, and there have been improvements to these, as well as entirely new settings added to the form. Here are three changes and additions about which we are the most excited:

Multiple Sections in a Single Canvas Site

The New Course Request Form lets you select sections to add to your Canvas site. Previously, if an instructor wanted their lab or recitation sections added to their Canvas sites, they would have to request this in the “Comments or additional instructions” box of the form, and we would have to manually add sections to the site, which could take a while depending on how close a request was to the start of the semester (the closer to the start, the longer to wait to due an increased volume of requests). The New Form makes section requests much easier, letting you add sections automatically to a site by checking a box. Please click on the following screenshot for an example.

Multi-section course description text, check-box for adding sections, and "Info" button to see what sections will be added if box is checked.
Click in the check-box to add sections to the Canvas site.

Important: We recommend clicking on the “Info” button before clicking in the check-box to see what sections will be added to the site. Here is an example of the section information that displays through the “Info” button:

Click on the "Info" button to see what sections will be added if you click in the section check-box.
Click on the “Info” button to see what sections will be added if you click in the section check-box.

Please note: Cross-listed courses don’t need to use the section-request feature to grant students who register under different course numbers access to the Canvas site. By default, any student enrolled in an officially cross-listed course has access to the Canvas site under which the site request was processed.  We have added a reminder about this to the Form (please click on the following screenshot for an example):

Teaching a cross-listed course and don't see sections in the "Info" button? Don't panic!  All students will have access to your site,
Teaching a cross-listed course and don’t see sections in the “Info” button? Don’t panic! All students will have access to your site.

Course Reserves

The option to add the Course Reserves button to you Canvas site is at the bottom of the form, just like it was with the old form. Please click on the following screenshot for an example.

Course reserve is under the "Library Services" section of the form.
Course reserve is under the “Library Services” section of the form.

The button now automatically appears in a site if this option is selected. Before, we would have to manually add this button to a site after it was created, and during busy times of a term (e.g., the first two weeks before classes start), users would have to wait for the button to be added manually, which could take a while. Now that the button is automatically added, users can place their Course Reserves requests as soon as their site is up.

Questions?

Please contact Courseware Support at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you have any questions about the New Course Request Form, and we will be happy to assist you.

Last Updated: 6 Jul 2015

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