	To make sure your Canvas course(s) are ready on the first day of class, here are things you should double check! For more information about the items, click on the provided links!

Publish your course - Students can't access a course until the Instructor publishes it. Even if it's the first day of class students will not be able to access a course that isn't published. Here at Valencia, it has been decided that courses will automatically be published the night before the start date. Publishing your course does not mean all of your course content is published. You will still need to make sure all Modules and content items are published also!

Check your course start date - When your course is created the course start and end dates are automatically populated. In most cases these dates are correct, but it's always a good idea to double-check them. At Valencia, CRN courses do not allow you to change the start and end dates, but you still might want to double check them.
Check the links in your course - Make sure all the different external links in your course are functioning by running the "Validate Links" tool. This tool searches through course content and returns invalid or unresponsive external links in both published and unpublished content.

Set a Grading Scheme - If you don’t set a grading scheme, students will only see their percent grade; they will not see a letter grade. To use the standard Valencia College grading scheme (A=90+, B=80-90, C=70-80, D=60-70, F=<60), go to your course Settings, make sure the Course Details tab is selected, and scroll down to the Grading Scheme setting. Check 'Enable course grading scheme' and click the link to set or view your grading scheme. In the window that pops up, click 'Select Another Scheme' on the top right, then click 'Valencia Default', and the 'Use This Grading Standard' button, and then the Done button. Finally, scroll down and click the 'Update Course Details' button to save your changes to the course settings. At Valencia, CRN Canvas courses should already have the Valencia grading scheme set, but Canvas sandboxes do not.

Adjust your Global Discussion Settings - If you are using Discussion Forums there is a good chance you do NOT want your students to be able to edit or delete their discussion posts, or be able to start their own discussion forum (not post, forum!). In addition, you may want your students to be able to attach documents or pictures to their discussion posts.

Publish your Assignments - Make sure all of your assignments, discussions, quizzes, etc., have been published (Draft State), otherwise your students will not have access to them. Unpublished assignments, quizzes, discussions, etc. will not be not visible to students, will not show up in the Gradebook, and you will not be able to enter grades for them. Publishing your course does not publish your assignments.

Remove unnecessary Navigational Links - Navigational links are the links on the left side of your course page. If you leave too many of them visible to your students, you run the risk of students becoming confused, or skipping your course content from the Modules and going straight to their quizzes or discussions.

Check assignment due dates and points - You can do this in a number of places, but the best way is through the Assignments link. You should also double check your assignment “lock dates” if you dragged and dropped on the calendar; in doing that, the “lock dates” don’t change, only the due dates change.

Update Information on Getting Help - The best way for students (and faculty) to get help is to click on the “Help” button at the bottom left of every page in Canvas. See other student resources on the Current Students webpage on the Valencia College website.

Add Lock dates to individual Modules - You might want to edit each module so it can be locked until a certain date. This allows students to have access to the module they are currently working on and not all of them at once. Locking Modules does not “hide” them or their content.
Publish/Unpublish Modules and content - You can “hide” Modules and other content from students by clicking the “Publish/Unpublish” circle which appears to the right of each Module and content item (a circle with a slash is “unpublished”, a green circle with a white checkmark is “published”). Even if content items are “published”, students will not be able to see those items if the Module they are in is “unpublished.”

Add a profile picture - Add a picture of yourself or something that represents you to your Canvas profile. Then, when you post something in Canvas, the picture will show up to the students!
Gradebook set-up - Double check that your gradebook is set-up correctly. This is especially true for extra credit. Extra credit can be tricky!

Course overview/student view - Do a once through in Student View. Does everything make sense and seem easy to find/understand? Do things look the way you want them to look?
Student Canvas Orientation - Direct students to the Canvas 101 course for learning how to use Canvas. See the Learn Canvas page in the Valencia Sample Courses in Canvas Commons for example language to use.

For a print version of this checklist, please click and download the following document: Start of the Semester Canvas Checklist.