College of Business DesignPLUS Templates

DesignPLUS is only available for College of Business courses.
Courses outside the College of Business sub-account will not have access to these functions or templates.

How to Use

To copy an institutional template page start editing a page in Canvas, then open DesignPLUS by clicking the Rocket Ship icon in the far upper right corner of the browser. Under Create/Edit Content>Copy Existing Content you should see Institutional Templates as an option. If this is not showing up for your College of Business course, please let us know. We're also happy to set up a meeting to help you get started with these tools.

Course Homepage

Examples

Below are the four homepage templates that we have developed for the College of Business.

Online Graduate

Online Graduate Homepage Template

Narrow Red

Narrow Red Homepage Template

Basic Bar

Basic Bar Homepage

Ribbons

Ribbons Homepage Template

After you've selected your template, fill your contact information and office hours along with a brief opening message to your students.

To set up the module preview at the bottom of the page, first create your modules in Canvas, then use DesignPLUS to reset the module list.

Choosing a Theme

For the College of Business, we have four different DesignPLUS themes available: Narrow Red, Big Red, Basic Bar, and Box Left. The templates are built with a default of the Box Left theme, but after placing any of the template pages you can change the theme to one that works best for you. You can see examples of each of these themes in the Start Here page examples below. These themes can also be applied to the syllabus or content pages as well.

Start Here

Narrow Red

Narrow Red Start Here Page

Big Red

Big Red Start Here Page

Basic Bar

Basic Bar Start Here Page

Box Left

Box Left Start Here Template

If you're used to teaching smaller classes, a "Start Here" page may feel overly formal, but if you're teaching online or to a large lecture it's much easier for students to feel isolated and directionless. A start here page is a great place for students to get to know their instructor, the support resources available, how to get started, as well as your recommendations for how to be successful in your course. Some components of this page can stay the same for every course, but there are a few we recommend modifying for your own use.

Letter of Introduction

This is an opportunity for you to introduce yourself to your students and present your qualifications for teaching the class, but also talk about who you are as a person, invite them to meet with you during office hours, and let them know you want to see them succeed. These messages can go a long way to fostering an inclusive classroom culture.

Required Materials

Under Step 2 list out all your required textbooks. If you have other required materials they should go in this area as well. Let students know how you're expecting them to use the textbook.

Are there problems in the book they'll be completing as homework?
Is it a personal study reference, or are you expecting them to bring it to class every day?
Will you be covering the same material in lecture?
Will there be information from the book that isn't covered in the classroom that will be assessed?

If your course has any optional materials you can create a smaller heading in this section for "Recommended Materials" as well.

Technical Expectations

There's an expectation that younger generations are "digital natives" and all have a solid grasp of certain technical abilities, but there's really nothing to support this. More recent software has certainly been developed to be more intuitive, but any technical expectations that you have for students coming into your class should be spelled out here along with sharing resources to help them get up-to-speed if they don't have the necessary technical skills. We have one example in place to help you get started.

How to Succeed

This is an area for you to make recommendations that fall in line with your expectations for student involvement in your classroom.

Would you like to see them being more engaged in classroom discussions?
Is it particularly critical for them to do practice problems every week?
Do you use a flipped classroom model and have a heightened expectation that students complete assigned readings?

This will likely look different for lots of people, and likely even different between classes. Make it work for your needs.

Next Steps

If you have your course organized into chronological modules you can just put this in a "Week 0" or "Course Resources" module at the top of the list, then the built-in "Next" button will populate the space below to lead them into the next item. Otherwise, make sure you add information in this area about how students should navigate the course. Do you keep materials in modules, or expect them to move around other areas of Canvas? We recommend using chronologically organized modules ("Here's everything you need for week 1").

Content Pages

To help articulate module-by-module objectives, expectations, resources, and opportunities each module should include an overview page. From our course design experiences we've found that there are two solid ways of approaching an overview page: as a comprehensive resource page or as a simple introduction to the materials on other pages in the module.

Simple Overview

The simple overview template includes the following sections by default:

Introduction
Objectives
Think
Read
Live Session
Module Progress Indicator

Since the module materials themselves are not include in this overview page template we also have a "Simple Content" template that includes a basic header and module progress indicator. Any readings, videos, or supplemental information can be added to this template to flesh out the module. Since there is not a "Do" list in the Simple overview page template it is critical that the module itself includes all items that a students needs to complete to provide a full sense of what's expected of them during that module.

Comprehensive Overview

In addition to the sections listed above, the comprehensive overview also includes the following sections:

Watch
Discuss
Do
References

With a comprehensive overview page we still recommend reiterating the "deliverable" elements by including them in the module structure itself.