Canvas: Distinguishing Between For-credit and Non-credit Courses

At University of Wisconsin-Madison, all Canvas course activity falls within one of two spheres: "for-credit" and "non-credit". It is important to understanding the differences between the two.

Canvas Course Shells

While Canvas does have a substantial administrative set of features -- Account management, the Dashboard, the Inbox, the Calendar, etc. -- most Canvas activity (thus, most Canvas learning) occurs within a Canvas course shell. The course shell is a specific space, a unique URL and subsequent folders and subfolders. (It may be helpful to consider these shells as "rooms"... or, "courses".)

Every course section listed in our university course catalog will be its own Canvas course shell. The annual IT Security program is contained in a Canvas course shell. If you request a sandbox course (discussed below) to just practice and play around with Canvas features, that will be a Canvas course shell. 

Canvas course shells need to be created. Some course shells are created by an automated process, at a predetermined time. Some course shells need to be specifically requested and manually created. This will be explained below.

For-credit Courses

This categorization, "for-credit courses", includes all course sections listed in the university course catalog.

• These Canvas course shells are automatically created by Learn@UW-Madison.
• This creation process varies every semester, but always occurs at least six weeks before the start of a given semester.
• All instructors listed in the course catalog will be added to these auto-generated Canvas course shells.
• Enrollment in these course shells is entirely managed by SIS, the university's enrollment system managed by the Office of the Registrar. (Instructors should not be manually adding students to these courses.)
• Enrollment in these courses is synced up multiple times a day, so "adds" and "drops" will be automatically managed. 
  
  

Non-credit Courses

All other usage of Canvas on the UW-Madison campus is considered part of the "non-credit" sphere. These would include:

• "Supplemental courses" intended to support the courses listed in the university course catalog
  • These course shells often serve as a resource for the students enrolled in a particular course, or major.
  • These course shells are not automatically generated. Instead, they need to be requested by the instructor. (See below.)
• "Sandbox courses" that provide instructors or staff space to "play" with Canvas functionality, to learn and test Canvas features and behaviors, before employing them in the formal course shells.
  
  • These course shells are not automatically generated. Instead, they need to be requested by the instructor. (See below.)
  • An instructor may request multiple sandbox courses.
• Compliance/Institutional Training
• Lifelong Learning courses
• Any other non-time-table use of Canvas

All of these non-credit course shells need to be requested. This is performed by completing the form linked here: Non-Timetable Canvas Course Request Form Links to an external site.

Enrollment for these courses is entirely manual.