Making Modifications to Your Online Course

As an instructor you may be interested in making modifications to your course as you teach throughout the semester. Your Dutton Institute learning designer can help you learn how to do so with ease!

We typically use Drupal, an open source, web-based content management system to deliver the College's online course materials. Drupal works by storing content in a database. Text and images are entered online in an editing environment that is much like any popular word processing software. By using this environment, it is easy for faculty to quickly add or change content, without needing to know HTML. Even students can be given permission to contribute content to a course!

We also use Canvas, the University’s course management system, in course delivery. Canvas is typically used for its communication tools, gradebook, course roster, calendar, dropboxes, and quizzing tools. Students may spend the majority of their online course experience in the course’s Drupal environment, switching to Canvas only for specific tasks like assignment submission or to participate in a graded online discussion - or may start in Canvas and view the Drupal-based course content through that environment (seamlessly). Links between Drupal and Canvas make this transition easy. Likewise, many courses link to other technologies, such as blogs and Zoom, as part of the learning experience.