Are you almost ready to share your Canvas Course site with students? Here are a few tips and resources to help you finish that work.
Essential Tips:
1) Set achievable goals
This first item isn't a resource, so much as a piece of advice. Updating an entire course for a new semester is a lot of work. To keep things manageable, try focusing on only what's needed to have the first week or two ready for students before moving on to other areas.
2) Check out the course from a student's POV
Before sharing your course with students, it's a good idea to check out how things will look from their perspective. Thankfully, your course has a built in tool that will let you do just that: How do I view a course as a test student using Student View?
3) Give your course some 'curb appeal'
Did you know that you can customize the image that is displayed above your course's name on the Canvas Dashboard? Well, you can! Learn more here: How do I add an image to a course card in the Dashboard?
4) Copy your sandbox materials into your fall course site:
Are you done making updates to your Sandbox site and ready to share those course materials with your students? If so, you'll first need to import your sandbox course into the 'official' Canvas site that includes your enrolled students. Both the sandbox and fall 2025 (i.e., 'official') course sites will be listed on your Dashboard in Canvas.
Instructions on how to import materials into your fall course from another course, such as a sandbox, are available here: How do I copy content from another Canvas course using the Course Import tool?
5) Declutter your Dashboard
Are you done working on your sandbox site and no longer need to see it on your Canvas Dashboard? Learn how to customize which classes are shown on your Dashboard here: How do I customize my Courses list?
6) Publish your course!
Are you ready for students to begin accessing your course? First, you'll need to publish it. Instructions are available here: How do I publish a Course?
Bonus Tips!
7) Post a welcome announcement!
Now that you've published your course, you'll want to let students know that it is available for them to access. An easy way to do this is to use your course's Announcements tool. By default, students should receive a notification about your message at the email address listed in their Canvas accounts. Learn more: How do I add an announcement in a course?
8) Monitor student access
Canvas makes it very easy to learn which students have visited your course. From within your course, access the People link on the course's navigation menu. On the People page, you'll see a list of students who have access to the course, along with the date and time when they last interacted with the course in some way (e.g. navigating to a page).
Caution: The Last Access and Total Time values listed on the People page will not be 100% accurate. I recommend using them as a way to understand whether and how frequently students are visiting the course, not as a measure of student engagement or participation. More information is available here: How do I use the People page in a course as an Instructor?