Canvas course types and templates
Learn about course templates and structure, course shells, cross-listed, and manually created courses.
Course types
Credit-bearing courses
The University recommends that all credit-bearing courses are developed in Canvas. Course ‘shells’ are created for all timetabled courses each semester (or term) by the Learning and Teaching Team. Students are automatically enrolled into a course with information supplied by the Enrolment Office. Before the start of teaching you will need to either:
- Import a previous course you have taught in Canvas into the new course shell for the upcoming semester.
- Create content from scratch in the new course shell.
If you are starting a course from scratch and don’t yet have access to the new course, you can create a new course draft (a manually created course), design the course and import it into the course shell once you have access.
Cross-listed courses
Cross-listed courses are courses with the same content but different course codes, or a full-year course that has two course codes in Student Services Online (SSO). Two or more courses can be managed through one primary course in Canvas.
- Students enrolled in cross-listed courses appear as sections in the primary course.
- Students will be able to access all files, modules, readings and other content in the primary course regardless of which course code they are officially enrolled in. So it is important to clearly label any content that is for a specific course/section.
- Cross-listed courses are not created when there is a possibility that a student will enrol in two or more of the cross-listed courses. This is because Canvas will only have one line in the Gradebook for that student (even though they are enrolled in two course sections), thus resulting in one overall mark/grade.
- Announcements made in a cross-listed course will be seen by everyone who is enrolled in the primary course. Contacting a specific course or section is achieved through Announcements or Canvas Inbox.
- The course summary will show the analytics for the whole course. You will not see a separate summary for each section.
- Once you select Submit, the marks for all of the cross-listed courses will be sent to Assessment Services. You cannot submit marks for just one section. All grades for cross-listed courses must be prepared and submitted at the same time.
To request a course to be cross-listed, visit: request Canvas support.
View the guide on: assigning assignments to course sections (PDF).
Manually created courses
Manually created courses sub-account
When a teacher clicks the button called ‘Start a new course’ the course will reside within the ‘Manually created courses‘ sub-account in Canvas. You cannot enrol students into these courses.
UoA – Manual sub-account courses
If student enrolments are required it should reside within the ‘UoA – Manual‘ sub-account for your faculty so your course access authoriser can add and remove students. These non-standard Canvas courses are available on request. These courses typically:
- Are managed by the course administrator of the course
- Are not bound to official University of Auckland course enrolments
- May include students (added manually)
- May exist outside of semester or quarter schedules
- Are non-credit bearing
- Are not provided for the purposes of solely communicating with groups of people: existing technologies are available for group/mass communications (see Sympa guide (PDF)).
- Are for the purposes of learning and teaching*
* Due to our Canvas licensing agreement, use cases will be judged on their ‘value’ to University. These might include, e.g., process and procedure courses for medical interns; co-delivered courses by say, UoA and AUT; an Economics competition for high school students.
Approved Manual courses provide users the ability to:
- Share information and files online
- Have discussions, quizzes, groups and activities
- Collaborate on pages and share documents
- Offer scheduled appointments for users
If you have externals requiring access, refer to this FAQ.
How to apply for a ‘UoA – Manual’ course
Please read the guides for obtaining approval for your manual course. Then, when you have the approval of your faculty’s course management authoriser (listed below), submit your request through the web portal. Make sure you attach proof of this approval. Non-faculty users should attach proof of approval from your manager.
Each course will be considered on a case by case basis.
- Faculty of Arts and Education
Lindsay Diggelmann, Associate Dean – Learning and Teaching - Business School
Douglas Carrie, Associate Dean – Learning and Teaching - Faculty of Engineering and Design
Enrique del Rey Castillo, Associate Dean – Faculty Administration - Faculty of Law
Sarah-Jane Crewther, Group Services Administrator sj.crewther@auckland.ac.nz - Faculty of Medical Health Sciences
John Egan, Associate Dean – Learning and Teaching - Faculty of Science
Andrew Luxton-Reilly, Associate Dean – Learning and Teaching
Course structure
Canvas Baseline Practices
The University has a set of basic requirements for all standard Canvas courses:
- Syllabus – includes the course outline and compulsory course information.
- Assignments – showing students how and when they will be assessed.
- Talis reading list – provides information about the relevant books and readings students will need during the course. Talis reading lists are compulsory for the university to comply with copyright regulations.
Utilising existing templates is an efficient way to make your course attractive and consistent with others in the same programme. For guidelines on structuring your course, including faculty templates, the Canvas Baseline Practices offers a consistent and accessible student experience.
Canvas Design Blocks
Canvas has a limited set of visual design options, however more layout options are achievable through the Canvas Design Blocks tool. This is a browser extension, which enables you to structure a page into columns and easily add buttons to a page.
FAQs
Who has access to manually created Canvas courses?
Three access options exist for manually created courses. These can be found under the visibility option within the course settings.
- Course level access – if your course access authoriser has given you ‘Course Access Coordinator’ role, you can manually add additional staff to the course. Enrolling students is done automatically for credit-bearing courses.* If you have externals requiring access, please see: Requesting course access for interns and visitors.
- Anyone enrolled in your course will see the course tile on their Canvas dashboard.
- Participants are able to take part in course activities such as a quiz or a discussion.
- Institution level access – all staff and students (current and past) can view the course.
- No enrolment process is required though the course access coordinator can add staff manually if required.*
- Anyone enrolled in your course will see the course tile on their Canvas dashboard.
- Course activities like quizzes and discussions are available only to those who are enrolled.
- Public access – the course is made publicly accessible.
- Activities like quizzes and discussions are not available.
- No enrolment process is required.
* Note: Course access coordinators and course access authorisers can add staff or student roles for manually created courses (see course types and templates) but they can only assign staff roles to credit-bearing courses; students have to enrol in these courses through Student Services Online. Find out who your course access coordinator is via the People section of your course.
View a comparison chart of Canvas features for course level, institution level, and public level access.
How do you combine two or more courses in Canvas (i.e., cross-listing courses)?
View the information on cross-listed courses.
How to apply for an 'official' manually created course?
This pertains to an officially recognised manually created course where the course can be published and course access authorisers can add staff; students can be added through SSO. Please obtain an approval for your course from your faculty’s course management authoriser before submitting your request.
View the list of course management authorisers.
Can I create and delete dummy/sandpit courses?
Staff with the role: Teacher, Teaching Support and/or Course Director are able to add and delete dummy/sandpit courses.
To add a dummy/sandpit course:
Teachers can create a dummy course using the 'Start a New Course' button from the Canvas dashboard. This course allows teachers to add additional staff to the course and to use it for testing various features.
Note: Students cannot be added to the course and the course cannot be published.
To delete the dummy/sandpit course:
Teachers will see the 'Delete this Course' button in the course settings for those courses that were created or started from the dashboard only and are part of the sub account 'Manually-Created Courses':
The 'Delete this Course' button has a confirmation and an alert message advising you to save the course ID in case the course needs to be restored in the future.
If you need to restore the course, fill out the Canvas Assistance for Teaching form.
Support
Check out our learning technology support page to find out what options are available for Canvas.
Page updated 07/10/2025 (stylistic changes)