What is a Module Anyways?
Modules in Canvas are a powerful tool for shaping your course's narrative and structure. With modules, you can efficiently organize your instructional materials and guide your students through their Canvas experience. Whether your prefer a weekly, thematic, or custom categorization, modules offer the flexibility to keep students on track while complementing your work with them in the classroom.
Module tips and tricks
What story do you want to tell?
Think of Modules as chapters in a story or steps in a process. As you build a module in Canvas, you are structuring how and when students receive content, learning activities, and assignments. So if you want students to read something before they take a practice quiz, you can structure the module to sequence the reading page before the practice quiz. Canvas has many tools; all of them can be accessed through a module.
Modules can be organized by weeks, units, or learning themes. Whatever structure you choose the important takeaways about module organization are to match structure of your F2F course and to know that students, especially in an online setting, thrive on predictability. Whatever pattern or rhythm you establish for your modules, be sure to keep it consistent throughout the course.
Module tools
Modules capture all other Canvas tools; they will help you organize your content.
- Modules can hold pages, discussions, assignments, quizzes, links, and attachments.
- Modules can be designed with prerequisites that require students to complete activities before moving on.
Building your module
Publishing Modules
To publish or unpublish a module, first select Modules in your course navigation. A module's published status is indicated by a green icon, and a module's unpublished status is indicated by a gray icon. These icons are only visible to the instructor.
You can change a module's published status by selecting the icon's drop-down menu (see image). To publish the module and all its items, select Publish module and all items. To publish only the module and not its items, select Publish module only. To unpublish a module and all its items, select Unpublish module and all items.
You can also manually change the published status of the module items by selecting the individual item icons. For a student to be able to view and interact with an item in your module, both the item and the module must be published. Check to see if students are able to see your content by selecting Student View and acting as a test student. If you cannot see the content in Student View, check that the content and its module are published. Here is a useful guide: How do I view a course as a test student using Student View?
Editing Modules
Editing Modules in Canvas allows you to control the flow of course content to students using three different features: 1) locking a module, 2) establishing prerequisites for a module, and 3) establishing requirements for successfully completing a module.
Locking a module
Instructors can lock modules until a particular date. Students will be able to see the title of the module and module content, but they will not be able to access the content until after the lock date has passed. Note that modules still must be published for students to be able to view the items after the lock date.
To lock a module, click Modules in your course navigation. Click the Options icon (the three vertical dots at the top right of the module) and select Edit (see image). The Edit Module Settings window will appear. Check Lock until, and enter or select the date and time you would like to unlock the module. Select Update Module on the bottom right of the settings window. The unlock date and time now appears under the module.
Module prerequisites
By setting module prerequisites, you can lock a module until a student has finished prior module requirements. Once a student has met the specified requirements, the next module will unlock. Completion requirements must therefore be set in previous modules for the current module to be unlocked. Additionally, previous modules can only be used as prerequisite modules.
In your course navigation, select Modules. Click the Options icon (the three vertical dots at the top right of the module) and select Edit. The Edit Module Settings window will appear. Click + Add prerequisite. In the drop-down menu, choose the module you want students to complete before moving on. To add more prerequisites, select + Add prerequisite. To remove a prerequisite, click the Remove icon (the X to the right of the prerequisite). If you want students to complete the modules in order, be sure to add prerequisites to each preceding module. Select Update Module on the bottom right of the settings window.
If students have completed modules before you add prerequisites, a Requirements Changed window will appear. Canvas will ask if you want to let students continue in the course, or if you want to re-lock the modules until the new requirements are completed. To re-lock the modules, select Re-Lock Modules. To allow students to continue without any changes, select Continue. Finally, you can view your prerequisites in the module header.
Module requirements
Once you have added items into your module, you can also add requirements. Requirements are the criteria that students must meet before a module can be marked complete. To fulfill a requirement, students must do one or more of the following: view the item, mark the item as done, contribute to the page, submit the assignment, or score at least x# of points on a quiz.
In your course navigation, select Modules. Click the Options icon (the three vertical dots at the top right of the module) and select Edit. The Edit Module Settings window will appear. Click + Add requirement. You can choose to have students complete all of the requirements and/or to complete the requirements in sequential order. Sequential order is based upon the order of the items on the Modules page. If you want students to complete one of the items listed on the Edit Module Settings page, select Student must complete one of these requirements.
Click the item dropdown if you would like to change an item. Select the completion requirement dropdown to choose how the item will be completed. To add one requirement at a time, click + Add requirement. Click the Remove icon (the X to the right of the requirements) if you would like to remove a required item. Select Update Module on the bottom right of the settings window.
If you change module requirements students have already completed, the Requirements Changed window will appear. Canvas will ask if you want to let students continue in the course, or if you want to re-lock the modules until the new requirements are completed. To re-lock the module, select Re-Lock Modules. To allow students to continue without any changes, select Continue. The module requirement types and requirement items will now be listed within the module.