Best practice for create a certificate comprised of 5 courses

Question

Hi there,

I am trying to create two certificates, each comprised of 5 courses. What is the best practice for doing this in Canvas? If I create the courses separately then there doesn't seem to be a parent object in canvas -- just the parts, which will look funny when a user clicks on the dashboard and sees all of the courses comingled.

I thought about just labeling them with the same prefix and using the same thumbnail image to be visually similar but this doesn't seem very scalable. Also, it doesn't really show progress for users or offer a common landing page (If I understand the system correctly).

Conversely, I can create the certificate as a single course with different modules, but wouldn't that limit my flexibility for leveraging courses in other certificates if I create stackable/pathways?

I look forward to your answers.

Thanks,

Doug

Greg · Accepted Answer

One consideration I would use to distinguish between the two options you mentioned, @Dougco1, is whether it's possible that any of the five courses could be completed in another way besides taking them via your Canvas instance (transfer? assessment of prior knowledge or experience?). If so, then keeping them as separate courses would make sense. Your mention of stackable pathways to me is a good reason to keep the courses separate.

The order (and even appearance) of courses on the Dashboard is controlled by the end user, so trying to control the order from the instructor or sysadmin side would not be worth the effort. I like to unfavorite courses once I complete them, and it's easy to look at my complete list of courses as needed.

Regarding the certificate, there are a couple of options in Canvas. You could create a pair of "certificate" courses designed to document students' achievements in the five constituent courses. That would help students see their progress but has the challenge of getting the completion data into the "certificate" course.

A second option is to use Canvas Badges or Credentials to create badges that students earn inside the courses. Canvas Badges is free, and with it you could award a badge for completing each course. One advantage of this is students receive a badge they can display on their social media profiles, etc., and you can use the badge issuer webpages to who's earned which badges. There is a fee for Canvas Credentials, and one of the benefits of that is you can create badge pathways where a badge is automatically awarded once a student has completed all of the steps on the pathway. My college uses this for one of our professional development programs:

Better-Prepared Online Teacher at Cosumnes River College

The courses that are part of our pathway can also be completed at institutions besides our college, and badges from those courses can be used automatically to count toward pathway progress.

There is more information about Canvas Badges/Credentials within in the Canvas Credentials/Badges (Badgr) section of the Instructure Community.