Section Merges

Ensuring FERPA Compliance

All sections that need to be merged must be to sent to the Division DOD. Provide all the necessary information (the Primary course and the Secondary course). The DOD will send Dean-approved section merges to Interactive eLearning. After your sections are merged, please follow the guidelines below to ensure compliance with FERPA regulations.

Canvas Course Guidelines

Use this as a checklist for compliance with FERPA restrictions when you have merged sections in your Canvas course.

Update Your Syllabus

Add information to your syllabus explaining that students from multiple sections will be in one Canvas online classroom.

Publish an Announcement

Publish an Announcement notifying students of the section merge in your class so that students are aware that two sections have been merged. You should do this in addition to including the information in your syllabus.

Modify Your Course Settings

Prevent students from organizing their own groups, leaving comments on announcements, and creating their own discussion topics. Thes can be done in your Course Settings and within other areas of the course.

In Course Settings
  1. Go to Course Settings.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the Settings page.
  3. Ensure these three options are unselected:
    • Let students organize their own groups
    • Disable comments on announcements
    • Let students create discussion topics

You can also modify two of these settings within other areas of the course:

From the Discussions tool:
  1. Go to Discussions and click the Settings button (gear symbol).
  2. Uncheck the “Create discussion topics” option.
  3. Save Settings.
When editing an Announcement:

An option to to allow students to leave comments on individual announcements appears below the Rich Content Editor when editing an Announcement.

Leave this setting unchecked in merged courses.

Disable Specific Canvas Tools

Disable the following Canvas tools so that they do not appear in the Course Navigation: People, Chat, Collaboration, and Conferences. Go to Settings > Navigation to disable these tools.

  1. Go to Course Settings.
  2. Select the Navigation tab.
  3. Disable items like People, Chat, Conferences, Collaborations.
  4. Save the settings.

Ensure Privacy When Using Canvas Inbox

Avoid revealing students’ names and emails when sending message using the Canvas Inbox. There are two options for sending a message in Canvas and staying FERPA compliant with combined courses.

  1. When composing a message, check the box that says “send an individual message to each recipient.” This will prevent students from sending a “reply all” response or seeing to whom the message was sent.
  2. Select the address book in the “To” box and then select “course sections.” This will allow you to send a message to students in a specific section. This is beneficial if you want students to be able to “reply all” to fellow section members.