Overview Video

Combining Sections

If you are teaching multiple sections of the same course, combining them into one Canvas course shell can help minimize the number of edits you have to make to your courses. No longer do you have to post multiple announcements, you can do it once!

Beyond the video above, here is a written guide on how to combine here at FLC.

Instructions

To combine courses there are a some steps to take to make the process go smoothly.

Getting Started

Determine which course you want to be the "parent" course and which course(s) you want to be the child course(s). For simplicity, I always pick the course that has the lowest SIS# for example, if I'm teaching the following courses:

FLC Fa24 COMM 301 LEC 15003 Murphy
FLC Fa24 COMM 301 LEC 15004 Murphy
FLC Fa24 COMM 301 LEC 15167 Murphy

I would pick the 15003 course as the "parent" course.

Now that you've selected your parent course, you need to get the number from the end of the URL. It will be the six-digit number at the very end of your parent course's homepage. For example, on the homepage of my 15003 course, the URL is:

https://lrccd.instructure.com/courses/246276

In that example, the numbers I am going to copy down are 246276. The numbers will vary for your course.

Note: You can add content, adjust due dates, and do any other edits in the parent course prior to combining and your work will remain after combining. Any work done in child courses will be erased.

Combining Courses

Now that you've copied down the 6 digits from your course URL, you can go to your child courses and combine them into your parent course.

Make sure you have your 6 digit number from the parent URL.
Navigate to your child course(s)
Click on settings in the course navigation
Click on the Sections tab at the top of the page
Click on your course section name
Click on the Cross-list this section button in the upper right
Enter the URL from step 1 and hit enter to see your parent course info populated
Verify that the "Selected Course" is the parent course you established earlier. Recall in my example, it was course 15003.
Click "Cross-list this section" to confirm your cross-listing.

Once you've combined your course(s) you can return to Settings>Sections and you should see all course sections listed together.

Recommended Next Steps

After you've combined your courses, I recommend going into Settings and adjusting the course name and course code to something descriptive that is section agnostic so student's aren't confused. For example, I change mine to "Public Speaking - Fall 2024" then hit save.

I hope that helps, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out!

Resources

How do I cross-list a section in a course as an instructor?
How do I assign a graded discussion to a course section?