1.4 End of the Semester

Place book orders online, request course evaluation packets, copy contents from your course site, block access to materials from old course sites, and use your course evaluation report to improve your next course.

• Place book orders
  At least 30 days before the semester begins, inform the Office Manager (or designee) in your department of your textbook selections. This person will compile all requests for all courses and forward them to the FSU Bookstore.

• Prepare for course evaluations
  All instructors teaching an FSU course are automatically enrolled in FSU's online course evaluation system. As upcoming course evaluation deadlines approach, ODL's Assessment and Testing staff notify instructors and departments via email. Notification emails also provide detailed instructions on adding custom questions, adding or removing students, removing courses (if eligible), and what to do if any information on file is incorrect. Please be sure to read notification emails so you can mark your calendar with important course evaluation deadlines. For more information on course evaluations at FSU, see the Course Evaluations page on the ODL website.

• Copy contents from your Canvas course site into next semester's course site
  FSU ODL Technical Support will automatically create your new Canvas course site for next term. Once your new course site has been created, you will be automatically enrolled into it as the instructor once your department lists you as the instructor of record for the course with the registrar. When you have access to your new site, follow the instructions in the Canvas Support article How do I copy content from my old Canvas course or Canvas development site into my new Canvas site for this semester? to copy your content over. Remember to keep your course "unpublished" while you rebuild your site so that it is not visible or accessible to students, and then publish the course when it is "ready for prime time."
   
• Block student access to materials on last semester’s Canvas courses
  To comply with current law, copyrighted materials on last term’s Canvas sites should now be made unavailable to students. Canvas courses are automatically only available to students in read-only format after the semester ends, but it is a good idea to make sure that you either adjust the availability dates on any copyrighted course materials, or unpublish copyrighted course materials to ensure that they are unavailable after the course has concluded. For more information on how course access works in Canvas, see this Canvas Support Center article. To hide last semester’s courses on your Canvas Dashboard, use the stars on the left of the Courses > All Courses page to customize which courses appear on your Dashboard.
   
• Use your evaluations to improve your next course
  You can use student responses from your teaching evaluations to make adjustments to next semester’s course. Review your report to identify which course components worked well and which ones you may want to consider changing. Making one or two changes in your course can produce big rewards for you and your students. Grouping student responses in the following categories can help you pinpoint where best to make those adjustments. The written comments can also provide indicators on which course practices and components you may want to keep and which could be refined.
  • syllabus (format, elements, and tone)
  • course procedures/policies
  • course content (scope, depth, and the examples provided)
  • assigned readings and other resources
  • activities (in and out of class)
  • assignments/tests
  • teaching method and style

• Begin drafting next semester's syllabus
  It's hard to begin considering your next term’s syllabus while you're racing to the end of this semester, but now is when you can still recall those policies that worked out well or the ones you were continually clarifying. Now is also when you can see clearly if you did indeed assign too much reading or not plan in enough time for a particular unit. Also be sure and review the tone of your syllabus—did it reflect your enthusiasm for the material and was it welcoming to the students?