Why should I use a Development Course?
This guide will go through why instructors should use Development courses.
Answer
Development courses are pretty simple, but powerful. They are sandbox courses that instructors can use to create course-specific content outside of any ties/limitations based on terms or students. They essentially serve as templates or lesson plans for the course and can be imported into the current term and endlessly into the future.
As opposed to copying a completed course at the end of the term. Development courses give the instructor the freedom to:
- Curate assignments (plan future ones, delete assignments that didn't work)
- Work on a template with co-teachers, or future co-teachers
- Curate content (Files, Pages, Assignments, etc.) to "clean up" the course
Beyond requesting a development course to begin planning for their new position, new instructors have an extra reason to use development courses. Due to privacy concerns, Canvas restricts adding new users to completed courses and so departments will often use development courses to share previous versions of the content with instructors that are new to the University or teach new subjects. Please see our Course Duplication Policy for more information on this.
If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of development courses or in having a development course created for your teaching assignment, please contact the Canvas Admin.