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