Because this semester will be remote for the entire add/drop period, it will not be possible for students to “sample” courses by just showing up as they would in person. Because of this, it is especially valuable to make your Canvas syllabus (or more) visible to students outside of your course so they can see your syllabus and consider adding your course during the add/drop period.
The Canvas Syllabus is a feature in Canvas that allows you to provide your course syllabus as a web page, PDF, docx, or other files. The Syllabus page also includes a Course Summary which is an automatically generated chronological list of all course assignment due dates and calendar events that you have set up in your Canvas course. By default the syllabus is only viewable to students enrolled in the course, but you can change the settings to make the syllabus accessible institution-wide to anyone with a Rutgers Canvas account.
The video and steps below will help you set your course syllabus visibility to the institution, and capture the proper URL to post on your departmental web page and share with students.
Set your Canvas course syllabus visibility to the institution
- Log into Canvas.
- Select your course from Dashboard or from Courses in the Global Navigation Menu.
- Click "Settings" in Course Navigation.
- Open "Course Details" (the first tab when you open Settings).
- Scroll down to "Visibility."
- Find the checkbox option to "Customize." Check this box to change the visibility of your Syllabus.
- A syllabus menu dropdown box will now appear giving you three options. Select the visibility option you want to set. We recommend setting you syllabus visibility to Institution.
- Course visibility means your sylabus is available to all users in the course.
- Institution visibility means your syllabus is available to users in your institution if they are logged into their Canvas account.
- Public visibility means the syllabus is available to anyone with the URL.
- To save changes to the course settings scroll to the bottom and click the blue "Update Course Details" button.
Looking for more information?
We’ve created a Spring 2022 Remote Start to Teaching Checklist. The SAS Teaching & Learning Team offers one-on-one consultations and departmental workshops. E-mail us to get in touch!
The following Canvas Guides may also provide you with more detailed information:
- How do I customize visibility options for course content?
- How do I customize visibility options for a course?
- How do I use the syllabus as an instructor?
