Faculty FAQ

To add an instructor to a previous course you have instructed go to the Request Forms button on the left and click on the "Concluded Course Access" section at the bottom of the page. follow the link that says "Request Concluded Course Access" and fill out the form to request an instructor have access to a previous course you have instructed.

Please note that the person you wish to add must have a FERPA form on file with the Registrar’s office. The form can be downloaded via this link.

Once the person has a FERPA form on file, you can add them with the following steps:

Go to http://wyoweb.uwyo.edu and click on Faculty & Staff under WyoRecords.

Next, click on Faculty and Advisors.

Click on the box labeled WyoCourses Supplemental Access, and you will be taken to a screen where you can select the term and then your course.

On the following page, you can add persons into your course in several roles, provided they are eligible to be added with these roles, which are listed on the Roles/Access button to the left.

 

Please note that you must select "Participation Allowed" in the WyoCourses Participation column.

There is a form for incomplete sections located on the Request Forms page. Once there go open the “Incomplete Section” and click on the “Request an Incomplete Section” link to be taken to the form.

Once your request has been processed, you will be informed via email. You will need to let the student know they can now access the course again.

Note that if you want them to complete assignments that are already in the course, you will need to add a second due date using the differentiated assignments function within WyoCourses. A video on how to create differentiated assignments can be found under the 90 Second Video Series in the Online Resources section under the Training button to the left, and a document on how to create differentiated assignments can be found by clicking the following link to the guide.

 

When a student withdraws, they are automatically removed from the course in WyoCourses. If you require information about their activity and grades before withdrawal, please email wyocourses@uwyo.edu with the course name and term as well as the student name. We will then be able to pull the student’s class activity information for you.

 

Canvas has reported that Internet Explorer 11 and Edge may occasionally cause problems with users submitting assignments. Currently, these are the recommended workarounds:

1. Use a supported browser other than IE 11 or Edge to submit assignments. A list of the other browsers we support is available to you here: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1284. This is the surest, simplest solution for users who have access to a browser other than IE 11 or Edge.
2. Add Canvas to the list of "trusted" websites in Internet Explorer. This has to be done in Internet Explorer, because Edge doesn't have this workflow in its UI yet. Adding a trusted site in IE carries over to Edge. This process is unintuitive to a point where we hesitate to suggest it to less-than-quite-savvy users.

By default, courses open at midnight on the first day of classes. If you would like students to have access before this date, you will need to follow the steps explained in this tutorial to change the access date.  Because adds and drops will cause this date to revert, you must check frequently to ensure the course stays open until the course start date has passed.  If you only want to let students view materials but not participate, you can uncheck the box for "Restrict students from viewing course before course start date" and Save the settings.

 

Attachments in discussion posts are a course-level setting you must change for each course. Unless you allow this setting, students will not be able to attach files to discussion posts.

To allow attachments on discussion posts, navigate to the “Discussions” tab in the course. On the right side of the Discussions window, you should see a small gear icon. Click this. Look under “Student Settings” for the “Attach Files to Discussions” option. Check this box then click “Save Settings” if you want students to be able to post attachments to discussions.

 

If you have an assignment marked as a file upload submission, you have the ability to specify what kinds of files are accepted. If a student reports issues with uploading a file, they may be attempting to upload a restricted file type.

Keep in mind that Canvas will only permit file types that exactly match what types you have specified. So if you restrict uploads to .docx, for example, .doc files will not be allowed.

 

When configuring an assignment, you have the option to set the assignment due date as well as the close date. Any submissions after the due date will be marked as late. The close date will “lock” the assignment and prevent any further submissions.

 

This happens when multiple grading periods are enabled but the option to display all grading periods is disabled. A walkthrough on how to fix this can be downloaded at the following link to the step-by-step guide.

 

There are a couple different ways you can get videos to display in a Quiz within WyoCourses. You can either upload media directly to the Quiz or you can set up a preview link if the media is hosted elsewhere, like on YouTube. To upload media, click on the filmstrip icon in the text editor when creating a quiz. You can either record or upload media.

If you are going to use an external link, you will need to do the following:
- Insert Link
- Highlight Link
- Select the 'Link to URL' button above in the text editor on the question
- Select the option to 'Auto-open inline previews for the link'

This should make a preview box available as another option.

 

Per the Registrar's Office, grades and exams should be kept for one year.

 

The courses may not have been crosslisted as expected. This sometimes occurs as a result of your courses being crosslisted after the semester courses were finalized by the Registrar’s Office.

If you notice an error with enrollments, please contact wyocourses@uwyo.edu and provide the course titles for the courses in question.

 

There are two reasons you may only see one section of a course that has multiple sections. The first reason is that it may have come across as a crosslisted course. To check this, go into the section you can see and click on the “Settings” tab. On the “Course Details” tab that should pop up, look at the SIS ID. If it begins with “XXLS” then the course has already been crosslisted. Double-check that all sections are present under the “Sections” tab if the course has an XXLS ID.

If the course does not have an XXLS ID and you cannot see the other sections, then you have most likely not been added as the instructor of record for the other sections yet. Please speak with the person in your department responsible for loading instructors into Banner and have them make sure you are properly loaded into all the courses you are supposed to be teaching.

 

Crosslisting is handled by the WyoCourses team through a request form. The form is located on the Requests page to the right, under the section "Crosslist/Combine Courses."

Click on the “Request a Combined Course” link to be taken to the crosslist request form. Once you have submitted the form, you will receive an email letting you know when the request has been completed.

 

This happens because the dashboard displays courses that are currently “active” within WyoCourses. If you want to display specific courses, you can change this with the following steps:

Click the “Course & Groups” button. You should see “All Courses" in the menu that appears. Click this link.

Here you will see all your courses listed. You should see a grayed-out star to the left of the course name. If you click this, it will turn gold and “star” the course, meaning it will always display on your dashboard. Do this for all the courses you would like to display. Once you have done this you should be able to see the starred courses on the dashboard.

 

There are a few forms of formal training offered on WyoCourses. There are also several videos and written documents. Check the Training page to the right to see upcoming available training sessions, as well as training videos produced by UW.

The Canvas Community contains many guides for common questions instructors have while developing their course shells. This can be found at https://community.canvaslms.com/community/answers/guides/.

Finally, if you have specific questions about a feature that are not answered through the training page or the Canvas guides, you can always contact us with your questions.

 

Please email wyocourses@uwyo.edu and let us know that you would like a test shell and do not have a proper UW account. We are happy to provide temporary accounts with their own test shells. All content you create in your temporary account can be very easily transferred over to your official course shells once your account is created and you are loaded in as an instructor.

 

All UW courses automatically receive a WyoCourses shell when the courses are finalized in Banner. You can experiment with an actual course shell or you can request a test shell be created for you by clicking the following link to fill out the request form. This test shell is simply for testing and experimenting with the platform. No students will be enrolled in the test shell. However, you can export content you create in the test shell to an official course in WyoCourses at a later date. ​

 

If a course is not published, students will not receive notifications or messages sent through the course and will not be able to view any course content. Make sure you have published the course if students are reporting access issues or not responding to messages.