Access Quercus:
□ Log in with your UTORid and password at q.utoronto.ca
Pre-Course:
□ Contact your Divisional Educational Technology Support staff member for questions about setting up your Quercus course.
□ Contact your Faculty Liaison Librarian who can assist you with recreating the library tools or resources from previous courses that you would like to include in your Quercus course. For example, course readings, library resources feed (example) or old course exams.
□ Become familiar with the Quercus Quick Guide which outlines the elements of the Quercus system.
Course Design Considerations:
□ Edit your Teacher Profile. Profiles allow instructors to update their name, preferred contact methods and share interesting facts about themselves using the biography feature. They can add specific links to course items or external pages (e.g., departmental webpage, your research webpage, link to a social media feed).
□ Set your course homepage. As you design your course, think about the learning experience. What do you want students to see when they enter a course? How would you like to structure course content to support the learning and teaching experience?
Want to learn more about how to build a welcoming homepage for your course? Consider going through the CTSI Asynchronous Program: Building a Welcoming Home Page in Quercus.
□ Organize your content. There are two options for organizing course content: Modules and Pages. As you design your course content, verify the due dates are correct.
- Organize course materials is a sequence in order for students to clearly follow along week by week during the course.
- Modules and Pages
- Watch the video Modules: Creation and Management
- Individual pages can be used to present content and information.
- Watch the video Pages: Creation and Management.
□ Publish individual course items. Individual items added to a Module must be “published” in order for student to access/view the content.
□ Download a class list or roster of students enrolled in course. Step-by-step instructions are available to download a copy of the class list using the Export feature in the Gradebook.
□ Add columns to the Gradebook, assign weights, and enter grades.
- Grade columns are NOT created in the Gradebook directly. Columns are created when instructors create a graded assessment (assignments, graded quizzes, graded discussions)
- Watch the video Assignments Overview.
- See also the Canvas guide on the difference between a Canvas Assignment and a Canvas Activity.
□ Set up your Gradebook
- The gradebook is automatically populated with your assessment items like assignments, quizzes and graded discussion topics.
- Watch the video Gradebook Overview.
- Instructors can also create assignment categories (called “Assignment Groups”) Using the Assignment Groups feature allows instructors to organize course methods of assessment, and assign weights to each Assignment Group or category.
□ Modify the Course Menu. The Course Navigation Menu provides access to course areas.
- Only the Home tool will be available to students in the course menu until the appropriate tools are made available by the instructor.
- Instructors can reorder and hide Course Navigation links in the course menu (Settings > Navigation)
- Note: Instructors cannot add new course menu items or edit the link titles in the menu list.
□ Share the Student Quercus Guide with your students to assist them navigating the tools and features of your Quercus course.
□ Publish your course. Course sites are created in an “unpublished” state. Instructors must manually make their course available to students by publishing the course.
□ Create an Announcement. The Announcement tool is used to broadcast course information to everyone enrolled in the course. Instructors can choose to receive notifications announcements and enable the Reply option to course announcements.
See the Canvas Community Instructor Guide for more information on the Announcements tool.
Check with your Divisional Educational Technology Support Office for a beginning of semester checklist.
For example the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering Education Technology Office has a Quercus Start-of-Term Checklist for Instructors, as well the Faculty of Arts & Science Teaching & Learning team makes available a Instructor Quercus Start-of-Term Checklist.