Request a New Course Shell

An ISU faculty or staff member may request a new credit-earning course shell or an organization shell with this tool. If a student group would like to set up an organization they will need to have their sponsor request the course.

A credit-earning course shell may be used for teaching credit-earning sections and allows departmental and college instructional design staff to provide assistance. If you want to develop a course for a term that is not yet listed in the Prepare to Teach tool, use this option, select the current term, and customize the end date.

An organization shell is for a special project or campus organization and cannot be:

  • attached to a specific semester
  • used for course credit-earning activities
  • used for grade submission

When you use the Request a New Course Shell tool:

  • The Canvas course is created immediately.
  • The Canvas course generates a default enrollment “Section”.
  • All users listed on the request form are enrolled into the default section.
  • Students can be enrolled at a later time using the Prepare to Teach tool.  They will be enrolled via a Registrar section and will not be a part of the default section.

Requesting a course shell

  1. Log into Canvas by clicking on the “Sign Ons” link found in the upper right-hand corner (above the search box) of Iowa State University’s home page.
  2. Request your course (or organization):
    1. Click on the ? Help icon on the red bar at the far left of the screen.
    2. Locate and click on the Global Course Administration link within the ? Help menu.
    3. Authorize ISU AdminTools to access your account.
  3. You will see two options:
    1. Prepare to Teach (Create courses, combine sections, and publish/unpublish courses)
    2. Request a New Course Shell (new credit-earning course shell or an organization shell )
  4. Choose Request a New Course Shell
  5. Follow the prompts
  6. Optional: Click the checkbox to “Preload your course with the ISU Course Template from the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.”
    A blue arrow indicates where you click the box to select to create from the ISU Course Template

IMPORTANT: If you choose to use the ISU Course Template, remove all yellow highlighting – this emphasis serves as instructor prompts to edit, remove, or add content.

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