LMS Procedures 

(Related to policy 4XX, section 6.0.) 

Updated February 2026 

 

Procedures on Canvas Use 

(Related to policy 4XX, section 3.0.) 

 

Definitions 

Confidential Data. Information that is meant to be kept private and secure. Disclosure could cause harm or damage to an individual or the College. 

Department Club. A student club associated with an academic department at Snow College, supported by the department, and advised by a faculty member. 

Directory Information. Student information that would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed, such as name, address, honors, or dates of attendance. 

Informational Courses. Canvas courses created to share public information such as program requirements or event details, not tied to specific student enrollment. 

Personal Identifiable Information (PII). Any data that can identify an individual, including names, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. 

Public Published Courses. Canvas courses made accessible to the public through a URL, typically used to share open educational content. 

Sponsored Club. A student club not associated with an academic department, without a faculty advisor, departmental funding, or a direct curricular link. 

Student Information System (SIS). Software used to manage student and employee records, including enrollments, grades, and financial information. Snow College uses Banner as its SIS. 

College Committee. A group of faculty, staff, or community advisors appointed or elected to perform college-related tasks and make recommendations for the College. Examples include curriculum, student affairs, and planning committees. 

Enrolled Students. Students registered at Snow College for a degree, certificate, micro-credential, or community education course, including employees taking courses. 

HIPAA Data. Protected health information covered under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), including medical records, lab results, or insurance information. 

Official Instructional Purposes. Activities directly related to teaching and learning, such as creating content, assessing student performance, and supporting educational objectives. 

3A. Acceptable Use of Canvas 

3A.1. Faculty teach courses using Canvas in accordance with 3.2 of Policy4XX, Learning Management System (LMS) Terms of Use. 

3A.2. Faculty and staff may use Canvas as an instructional tool to create course shells without official enrollments for the development of course-related materials, including learning experiences, assessments, discussions, video, and learning the tools associated with Canvas.  

3A.3. Department Clubs may use Canvas for club-related activities if no PII beyond what is provided to Canvas by Banner (e.g., Badger ID, student email, student full name, SIS ID) is included in the course. See 4A.2 for Sponsored Clubs. 

3A.4. Faculty and staff training or professional development courses are allowed if the following are met:  

• Training courses are not the sole basis for dismissal from the College if the employee fails to complete the training.  
• Training courses do not contain PII for the faculty and staff members.  
• Discussion boards, file uploads, or video recordings do not contain hiring or personnel information.  

3A.5. Departments or divisions may use Canvas for information storage/ display or for development courses. However, academic units should consider whether Teams has better features for this.   

3A.6. Current and past meeting agendas for the Board of Trustees may be displayed on Canvas. Board discussions should not be hosted in Canvas.  

3B. Publication of Canvas Courses  

3B.1. All Canvas courses that are associated with Banner (i.e., having students automatically enrolled) must be published by 8:00 AM on the first day of the semester (not the first day of the course).   

3B.2. Courses that are taught in the second 8-week block should be published by 8:00 AM when the block course starts.   

Note: Public-facing Simple Syllabus information must be posted at least two weeks prior to the first day of the semester. See 3C for details.  

 

3C. Housing Syllabi   

3C.1. Snow College has adopted Simple Syllabus as its syllabus repository system to comply with HB 261, and the information below needs to be published to the syllabus library at least two weeks before the beginning of the semester. Syllabi should follow the guidance provided by USHE as communicated by Academic Affairs with instructions in MySnow.    

Note: Courses added to the schedule after the two-week deadline should simply complete the Simple Syllabus as soon as possible before the semester begins. 

3C.2. Courses should have at a minimum the following information in Simple Syllabus:   

• Course title, prefix/number, section,  
• Pre-requisites and co-requisites, 
• Course student learning outcomes, 
• Required texts, reading assignments, and materials, 
• An overview of course units, and 
• A general description of course assignments 
• While it is not public-facing, a section in the syllabus explaining how to use and not use AI in the course is also required. 

3D. Announcements and Calendars  

3D.1. Announcements and calendars associated with Canvas courses are appropriate for course-related topics and due dates.   

3D.2. Global announcements (announcements that are displayed on the Canvas dashboard) are approved and created by Creative Services for the college. Only announcements that pertain to most or all students are allowed. Using the MySnow portal is often a more appropriate place for other announcements.   

3D.3. Canvas allows for a global calendar. Any information on the global calendar will be maintained by the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center and will only be used for official calendar information.   

4A Limitations of Canvas  

4A.1. Canvas may not be used to house Personal Identifying Information (PII) beyond the information contributed by Banner to Canvas (e.g., Badger ID, student email, student full name, SIS ID).  

4A.2. Sponsored clubs may not use Canvas for club-related activities and information. 

4A.3. Instructors should not require or request that students post their cell phone numbers, birth dates, and other identifiable information in Canvas.   

4A.4. Housing advancement and tenure portfolios or dossiers in Canvas is discouraged because they contain sensitive information such as course evaluations, letters of recommendation, research data (if used in arguing for promotion), faculty development plans, etc. Even if a faculty member uses Canvas for a dossier, Canvas must not be the location of written discussions or notes by the Advancement and Tenure Committee.  

4A.5. Canvas should not be used for college committee discussions, especially committee discussions concerning the use of college or state funds or concerning employees’ job performance. 

4A.6. Third-party tools (often software that works within Canvas) will not be integrated in Canvas without a signed agreement between the vendor and Snow College and without the required HECVAT and VPAT review and approval from IT.  

4A.7. Student surveys that do not relate to a particular course or program of study may be launched from Canvas, but the data should be housed in a more secure system (such as the Snow College Qualtrics account).  

4A.8. Data protected by HIPPA (e.g., medical data or therapy information) may not be housed in Canvas.  

4A.9. Canvas may not be used to house information or discussions relating to awarding, tracking, renewing, or cancelling student financial aid or awards, including scholarships or honors.  

5A Course Content  

5A.1. Each Canvas course has a limited amount of storage space. Faculty are encouraged to remove unnecessary files and pages at the end of each semester.   

5A.2. Canvas content should be made accessible (WCAG 2.0 AA guidelines), in compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  

5A.3. Canvas content should conform to current US copyright laws.    

5A.4. Courses can be reset, which will delete all content and submissions, by reaching out to the Teaching and Learning Center.  

5B Enrollments in Canvas Courses  

5B.1. Canvas accounts are generally created through Banner, although accounts can be manually created through the Teaching and Learning Center. Accounts created through Banner require a Badger ID before they can be processed. The creation of manual accounts for new full-time and adjunct faculty is discouraged.   

5B.2. As a general rule, only the instructor of record and enrolled students should be in Canvas courses where student grades or other data are available. Others in the Canvas course should be given the Observer role or some other access that matches their responsibility toward the course.  

5B.3. Occasionally, Snow College employees may need course access to export student artifacts, evaluate design and teaching at a deeper level, or fulfill an administrative task. These employees can be added temporarily into a course to complete the required work and should then be removed from the course. 

5B.4. Canvas has the ability to set end dates for enrollments. Although not required, adding faculty and staff into courses in situations such as the ones described in 5B.2 should be limited to the time needed to complete the work needed.   

5B.5. Students should only be enrolled in Canvas courses where they are officially enrolled through Banner. Faculty may be added into a Canvas course as a student if the course relates to professional development.   

5B.6. The TA enrollment is reserved for teaching assistants who are not currently enrolled in the course. This enrollment allows TAs to view the gradebook, files, pages, quizzes, and SpeedGrader. When a student is enrolled in the course but will be grading papers, the Student Grader role should be used.   

5B.7. Employees of a local school district assigned to concurrent enrollment may be admitted as a Concurrent Enrollment Observer.   

5B.8. Parents of students are not enrolled in Snow College Canvas courses (per FERPA regulations). This includes parents of students who are enrolled through Concurrent Enrollment.    

5B.9. Employees of the college who have job duties that would require administrative access to Canvas will be given access upon a signed statement clearly defining what permissions are provided to that employee and the appropriate use of those permissions.   

5B.10. To maintain accurate enrollment information, faculty are not permitted to enroll students in courses that are created and maintained by Banner.  

5B.11. Courses that are not created and associated with Banner can have an instructor or manager added with the role “Club Advisor” which allows for manual student enrollments.   

5B.12. Public courses can be enabled to have self-enrollment.   

5C Incomplete Grades  

5C.1. Students who qualify for an incomplete grade should not be accommodated in the following ways: 

• Enrolled in or added into a future semester’s course. Enrollment should be maintained in the semester where the student was initially enrolled.   
• Enrolled in an instructor-created course designed to accommodate just the student with an incomplete. 
• Changing the course dates found in Course Settings to extend the semester (unless a subsection is first created. See 5C.3). 

5C.2. Incomplete grades require an agreement between the instructor, student, and Registrar’s Office. Agreements require an end date for when the incomplete will be completed.   

5C.3. After the Registrar’s Office has entered the incomplete, the Teaching and Learning Center will create a subsection within the Canvas course of initial enrollment for the student or students with the incomplete and the instructor. Dates will be adjusted to allow the student or students to view the course while ensuring other students are not able to see the course.  

5D Copying Canvas Courses  

5D.1. Canvas course content can be copied from one semester to another if the courses are taught by the same instructor. Copying content from one instructor’s Canvas course to another instructor’s course requires written consent from the previous instructor. The written consent will be kept in the new Canvas course’s files.  

5D.2. When a course is created as a master template course for a course that is taught with multiple sections, the content may be copied without written notification.   

5E Cross-listing Canvas Courses  

5E.1. Cross-listing Canvas courses must be done by the Teaching and Learning Center staff. To request cross-listing, complete the Kuali form or contact Academic Affairs. 

5E.2. Cross-listing of Canvas courses is allowed on a limited basis. Courses approved for cross-listing must be combined before any student work is submitted.   

5E.3. Cross-listing courses in Canvas is encouraged in the following circumstances: 

• Courses that are officially cross-listed in Banner and with the Registrar’s Office, such as when courses are taught in two different departments with the same content (for example, HFST 1210 and BUS 1210);  
• Courses that meet at the same time and same location (or connected via broadcast), such as IVC, CBE concurrent enrollment, or Foundations.  

Note: When a Concurrent Enrollment student needs to be put into an online section of a course, it is possible to cross-list the “40#” section with the appropriate “N0#” section.   

5E.4. Cross-listing courses in Canvas will not be allowed in the following circumstances: 

• When the classes have different course numbers, titles, outcomes, fees, credits, and/or grading basis. 
• When the classes are being taught in two different modalities. For example, an online section and a face-to-face section of a class cannot be cross-listed. 
• When the classes have different methods of delivery. For example, a CBE course cannot be cross-listed with a class with a traditional grading structure. 
• When one class is a technical education class and one is a non-technical education class. 
• When classes are being taught on different semester schedules. For example, a block and a full-semester class cannot be cross-listed. 
• When two students must be in separate sections that meet at separate times because of legal or administrative no-contact orders.  

5E.5. Cross-listing in the following circumstances is possible to support a faculty member’s pedagogy:  

• Two or more face-to-face sections of the same course that meet at separate times.  
• Two or more online sections of the same course.  

However, in these situations, faculty members are responsible for protecting student privacy by turning off or avoiding the following Canvas features, keeping students enrolled in one class separate from those in another. 

• chat tools,  
• video conferencing tools,  
• comments on announcements,  
• student-created groups and discussions.  

Furthermore, student groups need to be constituted with students in the same section, and instructors must click “Individual Message” when sending group messages to classes. 

5E.5.1. The Blueprint Option in Canvas is a valuable feature for instructors. Faculty can still have the needed convenience of making changes in Canvas courses only once when they have two or more sections of the same class. Blueprint courses allow instructors to make changes in one master course and apply all changes to associated courses.  

5F Deleting Courses  

5F.1. Snow College has used Canvas since 2011. Due to the length of time Snow College has utilized Canvas, this can create a significant list of past courses for faculty. As a result and after soliciting faculty input, the Teaching and Learning Center will delete older Banner-created courses to help reduce the list of past courses for faculty. At the start of each new fiscal year, courses older than five completed academic years will be deleted from Canvas.  

5F.2. Ample notification will be provided prior to any courses being deleted.  

5F.3. Only Banner-created courses will be deleted. User-created courses, sandboxes, and other sites will not be deleted even if they are more than five years old. 

5F.3. If a faculty member would like a Master Course (MC) or sandbox created so they can keep course content longer, they can request one through the Teaching and Learning Center.