The end of the semester is a good time to complete “housekeeping” tasks that will aid in preparing you for future semesters and give you a backup of materials created and submitted throughout the semester.

Get Help

The School of Education Academic Technology Specialist (SOE ATS) endeavors to assist our UNC Greensboro School of Education (SOE) instructors with their pedagogical and technological skill needs in order to enhance their instruction and make their use of technology more effective and efficient.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out and schedule a consultation.

Canvas

There is nothing that you need to do to conclude your Canvas course; the term limits for the semester will take effect automatically. Once the semester term ends, your course will be placed on your students’ “Past Enrollments” list, where they will continue to have read-only access to it. 

1. Check your grading – Ensure student grades are tabulating correctly. There are a few things to consider here:
   • If an instructor fails to record a “0” grade for a student who does not submit a required assignment, the Canvas grade book will not calculate that missed assignment into the final grade; therefore, the missed assignment will not count against the student.
   • If you have assignments where no points or grades are assigned and they are placed in a weighted Assignment Group, if you do not record any grades, these may negatively affect your students’ final grades. These ungraded assignments should be placed in a separate, un-weighted Assignment Group. 
   • You can choose to excuse a student from an assignment, discussion, quiz, or group assignment from the Gradebook. Excused assignments are not calculated as part of a student’s total grade. 
2. Unmute assignments & quizzes – Muting in Canvas is when you hide feedback and grades from students. If you have used muting throughout the semester, you should see if all of your assignments and quizzes are still unmuted. You will want to unmute assignments so students can receive your feedback and grade, but you will also want to unmute assignments and quizzes for the total grade that your students see in their Canvas grade summaries.
3. Export Gradebook – Download and save the current version of your course(s) gradebook for future reference offline.
   • When you download the scores into your Excel spreadsheet, you will see a “Current Score” and a “Final Score” column. Depending on how you have entered your scores, the grades in these two columns may not match. This is NOT a miscalculation by Canvas. It simply means that the system does not calculate unsubmitted assignments as “0” grades in the “Current Score” column, but it does calculate unsubmitted assignments as “0” grades in the “Final Score” column. Therefore, if the numbers in these columns do not match, you will need to return to any assignments that you have yet to enter grades.
4. Check Course Links – Use the Canvas link validation feature to check if your course links are still working. This will ensure that the links in the course are still working in case you choose to copy course materials from this course into a future course. You should consider completing this step at the start and end of the semester. 
5. Customize Course List – When a course ends you may no longer want to see it in your dashboard, consider customizing the active courses you want to show in your Course list.

Professional Learning Opportunities

The SOE ATS is actively involved with promoting technical competence, awareness, and skill-building throughout our educational programs, emphasizing the benefits that technology can bring to the classrooms by promoting active, participatory learning.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to your SOE Academic Technology Specialist and schedule a consultation.