At Chico State, an "Organization" is a collaborative space similar to a course, but it is designed for non-teaching and learning purposes. Organizations can be used by different groups within an institution for various activities, such as committees, professional development, or any other group activities that require a structured online space. Organizations are designed to support various academic activities that are not necessarily tied to a specific academic term or regular student enrollments. These organizations serve a variety of purposes and cater to different academic and administrative needs. This article explains what an Organization is, when to use it, and when other platforms might be more suitable.
Overview of Organizations
Organizations in Canvas are created by request to the Technology & Learning Program (TLP). They serve as hubs for academic communities and programs, enabling the sharing of information, announcements, and interactive activities. Unlike regular courses, Organizations are not tied to specific academic terms and can persist across multiple terms.
Organization General Guidelines:
- Membership in any organization is typically only open to current Chico State students, faculty, staff, and other users already present in Canvas.
- Organizations will be sponsored by a dean, department chair, director, or instructor member (leader), who assumes responsibility for the organization’s site including its content and activities. There will be no delegation of this responsibility to a student representative.
- Managing the organization's enrollment is the responsibility of the leaders.
Appropriate Uses of Organizations
Consider requesting an Organization if your site:
- Provides academic information, announcements, or surveys.
- Functions as a course for activities like student orientation, professional development, or test practice.
- Uses features such as Announcements, Surveys or Quizzes, and Discussion boards.
For instance, Organizations can often fall into one of the following archetypes:
- Faculty Learning Communities: Groups of faculty members who collaborate on professional development activities.
- Program Hubs: Centralized spaces for managing activities and resources for online degree programs or other long-term academic initiatives.
- Student Orientation: A dedicated space for onboarding new students, providing them with essential information, resources, and activities to familiarize them with the institution.
- Professional Development: Sites for ongoing training and development sessions for faculty and staff, including workshops, webinars, and resource sharing.
- Advising Centers: Spaces where academic advisors can share resources, schedule meetings, and communicate with their advisees.
Inappropriate Uses of Organizations
If your primary need is to store and share documents, consider the following alternatives instead of Canvas:
- External storage drives.
- OneDrive for document storage and sharing.
- Microsoft Teams for group interaction and document sharing.
- SharePoint for departmental document storage and sharing.
- Department technical support for setting up shared drive folders with user permissions.
Additionally, the following uses are typically better served by other alternatives on campus:
- Web Hosting: To host pages and files that should be accessible by a large audience, including people not directly affiliated with the university, use the university web, YourWeb, or Google Sites instead.
- Student Clubs: To host resources for student clubs, use CatsConnect, YourWeb, or Google Sites instead.
- File Storage: For storing and sharing large volumes of files, use OneDrive, Google Drive, or SharePoint.
- Video Library Hosting: For hosting and sharing videos, use Kaltura. If a shared space is desired, channels can be leveraged to group related media.
Requesting an Organization
To request an Organization, contact the Technology & Learning Program (TLP) with the following information:
- Name of the Organization
- Purpose of the Organization
- Names of individuals to be added as Teachers
After reviewing the details, TLP will create the Organization in Canvas and add the specified members.
Request an Organization
Enrollment Management
Instructors in organizations have the ability to manage enrollments but are restricted from adding other Teachers. This limitation exists because Canvas’s permissions model does not allow differentiation between multiple roles that inherit from the same base role (in this case, the “Teacher” role). Therefore, only TLP can add new Teachers to an organization.