Course sections can be combined to reduce the work an instructor needs to do to maintain course content.  Crosslisting courses introduces the possibility for FERPA non-compliance.  This document details the steps needed to mitigate FERPA concerns in crosslisted courses, and provides instructions for crosslisting.

Combined Courses and FERPA  #

FERPA provides a number of rights to  students in higher education.  One of these is the right to the privacy of their schedule.  This means that instructors who choose to combine their Canvas sections need to take extra precautions in setting up their courses to ensure that this right is preserved. 

Disabling Course Content:  #

People, Chat, Collaborations  #

The People, Chat, and Collaborations features all have allow students to see each other regardless of the section they are enrolled in within the course. Disabling these features help to ensure that students from one section can’t see student enrollments from another section. 

Canvas Guides: Managing Course Navigation links 

Creating Groups  #

When you create a groups in a course with combined sections, you should check the box to “Require group members to be in the same section” 

Canvas Guides: Creating groups 

Discussions  #

Discussions hold the potential to expose student enrollment information to the entire class.  You can mitigate this by creating discussion groups that only contain members of a single section.  

Even if you don’t want to subdivide your class discussions into groups, you can use the group tool to force discussions to be between members of individual sections.  Create a group set with the same number of groups as there are sections in the course, then select the “Require group members to be in the same section” box.  This will generate groups that contain the same members as your sections 

Canvas Guides: Creating group discussions 

Course settings  #

There are a few course settings that should be changed to ensure student privacy.  Course settings can be accessed from the “Settings” menu on the left side of your course. These settings are all under the “more options” link at the bottom of the Settings | Course Details page 

Uncheck: 

Let students create discussion topics 

Let students organize their own groups 

Disable comments on announcements  #

Canvas Guides: Using Course Settings 

Sending messages to students – select “send individual messages”  #

When using the Canvas Conversations feature, you can send messages to students without including the whole class in replies.  The “Send an individual message to each recipient” checkbox will act as a BCC, hiding the recipients from each other 

Canvas Guides: Using the Inbox 

Steps to cross-list sections  #

1. Pick a course that will be the “parent” course (the course everything else will be crosslisted into. This is the course that will remain after all others have been crosslisted into it.). You will use that course name or ID (number from URL) to input into the remaining “child” courses. 

2. In a child course, navigate to settings and sections. 

3. Click on the section name.  
    
      

4. Cross-list Section will appear (on the right or bottom). Select Cross-list this Section.  
    
    

5. A box will open, here is where you put the “parent” name or ID. Once the course is recognized it will pop up to be selected.  
    
      

6. Then click Cross-list this Section.  

7. You should notice the name at the top left change to the “parent” course name.  

8. Verify the section is cross listed by navigating to Settings > Sections which will now have both listed.  
    
    

9. Navigate back to your dashboard and select the next course you need to crosslist.  

10. Follow steps 2-9 for any additional sections..  

Resources   #

Canvas guide: How do I cross-list a section in a course as an instructor? 

Tips and Tricks   #

• You need to be a teacher in all sections you are cross-listing. 

• Cross-listing should be done while courses are unpublished and before content is added. Coursework is retained with the course, not with the section enrollments, so if a published course is cross-listed, all cross-listed enrollments will lose any associated assignment submissions and grades.  

• May already be done through AccesSPoint import; if you have combined courses in AccesSPoint, they should come into Canvas as combined.   

• If you have multiple sections of the same course with the same name, it may be hard to identify which courses you want to cross-list. It is suggested that you update the names of your courses to not only include the course title as pushed from AccesSPoint, but to also include the semester or section number. 

• Instructors at UWSP do not have the capability to de-cross-list courses. If you make a mistake in cross-listing your course and need to de-cross-list, contact UWSP’s Canvas administrator.