Online Education Guidelines & Policies

For the most up to date information on Canvas training dates, please see our training calendar located at http://deanza.edu/online-ed/faculty. You do not have to be specifically teaching an online or hybrid class to receive Canvas certification: In fact, we encourage faculty who teach face-to-face to get certified so that they can use Canvas as a way to enhance their existing courses, such as posting assignments, grades, or other instructional materials.

Our instructional designers are also available to offer Canvas training for groups or departments. Please contact onlineeducation@fhda.edu if you would like to us to coordinate a group training for you.

If you are an instructor who has used Canvas at another institution, we still ask that you complete our certification process. Fast-track training is available for newly hired faculty with prior Canvas experience during the Open Lab sessions scheduled during finals week.

If you have been assigned to teach a class that is hybrid or online, you must be certified to use Canvas at De Anza college. Canvas trainings are held routinely each quarter. Our calendar for Canvas training dates can be found here.

Please note that you will need to complete your certification process no later than one quarter prior to your teaching assignment (so if you have a hybrid or online course for Spring, finish your training by Winter). If you are not Canvas certified, then this may impact your dean’s ability to offer you an online or hybrid assignment.

Our office strongly recommends that faculty complete Canvas training at least 2 quarters prior to an online assignment. Designing a quality online course is a time-intensive endeavor, so having one full quarter to develop course materials and content before an online teaching assignment is ideal.

Online Education is unable to provide proctoring services for faculty. Arrangements for any exams that need to be proctored in an online course must be arranged between the instructor and student(s). If you need a room for an in-person examination on campus for your online course, please contact our office at 408-864-8969. Please be sure that any information regarding required on campus exams are noted both in your syllabus and in the footnotes on the course schedule.

Fully online courses must be published by the first day of the quarter. Our office recommends that instructors publish courses by no later than noon of the first day of the quarter for fully online classes. Hybrid courses should be published by the first face-to-face meeting. Detailed information on how to activate and publish your courses can be found in in the Canvas Help Menu.

If you are teaching an online course and wish to meet face-to-face for a session (such as an orientation, exam, or other class meeting), please contact our Instructional Associate, Jenny Vela, (onlineeducation@fhda.edu) at least two weeks in advance. When requesting a room, please include the following:

• The date you will need the room
• The number of students you are expecting
• If you would like a particular room on campus.

We will do our best to honor your request, but rooms are assigned on a first come, first served basis.

If you are planning to offer a class as hybrid or online for the first time, please navigate to the curriculum website and download the forms on the Curriculum Committee’s website: http://dilbert.fhda.edu/curriculum/

Navigate to “forms” on the left navigation, then “Online/Hybrid” in the drop down menu.

For hybrid courses, please consider the following:

• What percentage of the time you wish to be face-to-face versus online. By providing a range, you can allow for different course configurations with scheduling
• Will your online hours be synchronous (rare) or asynchronous (common)?
• How will the mode of delivery affect your ability to meet the course objectives and learning outcomes?

For online courses, please keep the following in mind:

• If there will be any on-site meetings or exams
• Will there be a requirement to meet synchronously online at any point in the course?
• Beyond access to an internet connection, is there any specific software the student will need to succeed in the course?

All requests for new online or hybrid requests must be reviewed by the Faculty Coordinator for Online Education, Brandon Gainer. This form can be found on the curriculum website. Please submit forms directly to his box on campus or our office in MLC 210

There are several software features De Anza has integrated into Canvas. We can support and answer questions about the following integrations: TurnItIn, Films on Demand, and Ted-Ed.

We have installed integrations from the following publishers: McGraw-Hill, Pearson, MacMillan, and Cengage. Please contact your publisher rep directly for what is needed to support their material in your course.

If you are using other publisher software in your course (REVEL, MyBusinessLab, etc.), we can work with you to get the software integrated into Canvas. However, our office cannot handle any technical support beyond the initial set up, so please direct any issues to the respective publisher.

Both faculty and students who need help in Canvas should log into Canvas and click the “Help” global navigation button on the bottom left of the screen. The best source of current Canvas information and tutorials are the Canvas Instructor Guides and Canvas Student Guide, which are frequently updated.

Students and faculty with questions that are not answered by the online resources should open a help desk ticket by clicking the “Report a Problem | Open a Ticket” link in the Canvas help menu. Please describe the problem or question in as much detail as possible (Course name, CRN, section number, and instructor), as well as the specific assignment, page, or function causing the issue.

Urgent questions can be addressed by calling the Online Education Center during business hours (408-864-8969). During weekends, contact 1-844-592-2207 for Canvas support.

For individual, hands-on-help, faculty are invited to attend any of the weekly Open Lab Hours. Check the calendar link in Canvas for upcoming dates and times.

For individual consultation with the Faculty Coordinator, please contact Brandon Gainer (gainerbrandon@fhda.edu / 408-864-8802).

In Canvas, there may periodically be the need for someone to join the course beyond a student or observer role. Our office currently supports the following:

Student Mentors: Students who are not currently enrolled in the course but our assisting with tutoring, moderating or participating in discussions.

DSPS Staff: DSPS staff may periodically request access to a course to gain an understanding of how the course is taught to better serve DSPS students.

Cohort Programs: (LEAD, Puente, Men of Color etc.)

Counselors: Counselors who are directly working with a specific class or program (e.g. MPS).

Evaluator: For official J1 Evaluations

If you have a need beyond this list, please contact the Online Education Center.

Encourage all new faculty hires to sign up for Canvas training as soon as possible. Faculty with no prior experience with Canvas or learning management systems should give themselves 4 weeks to complete all the modules. Faculty with prior experience can be fast-tracked as long as they show up during one of our open lab sessions during finals week.

When possible, please avoid hybrid and online assignments for emergency hires without prior Canvas experience. It is extraordinarily difficult for our staff to accommodate training for an individual through the entire process on short notice.

Certification is still required even if a faculty member is primarily using publisher software for their online or hybrid course, we still need them to be certified. Students need to pass through Canvas before moving to the publisher site so that the institution can track attendance and activity within online and hybrid courses.