Course Requirements (Face to Face, Online, and Hybrid)
The following requirements are in effect for the Fall 2025 semester:
Publishing Course
Courses are to be updated and published at least 5 days prior to the first day of classes.

Assignments and Gradebook

  1. At least 1 assessment is due each week.
  2. Gradebook must be visible to students.
  3. All grades must appear in the Canvas gradebook.
  4. Assignments page must be visible to students.
  5. Unused Assignment Groups are to be deleted from the Assignments page so they do not needlessly clutter the gradeboook.
  6. All assignments must have due dates in Canvas. The course shell is set up to enter a zero automatically when an
  7. assignment is overdue. This is the only way students and instructors will know the actual current grade. If the student submits the assignment after the due date, the updated grade will replace the zero. If they do not submit the assignment the zero is already there.
  8. Each Course Learning Outcome must be assessed by the end of the course. Conversely, content that does not align with a Course Learning Outcome should not be in the course.
  9. If using a textbook integration (MindTap, McGraw Hill, etc.):
    1. Grades must sync back to the Canvas gradebook.
    2. You must still have assessments created by you and submitted in Canvas.
    3. Courses are not to entirely live in a publisher’s integration.

Course/Canvas Design

  1. All Canvas template placeholder text must be updated or not be visible to students.
  2. Unused pages must be unpublished.
  3. Syllabus is to be on the Canvas Syllabus page as a downloadable document (Word or PDF).
  4. Course Summary is to be visible on the Syllabus page.
  5. About Your Instructor page is to be updated and published.

Accessibility (Required)
Course materials/technologies must be Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant.

Copyrighted Materials
All materials used within an EWU course must be considered fair use, in the public domain, or have written permission to use from the copyright holder. Additional Online Course Requirements

Course Structure (Required)
Courses should utilize a weekly modular format. Modules can last more than a week if needed.

Introduce Yourself Discussion (Required)
Social presence is an important part of asynchronous online courses. Students need to feel that they are more than an anonymous number – they need interaction. Students are required to respond to at least two classmates. Course credit is optional. You could choose to allow students to submit a video response. Suggested prompts:

  1. Where are you from?
  2. What is your major?
  3. What are your long-term goals?
  4. What do you like to do in your free time (or something similar)?

Course Topic Discussions (Required)
There should be at least two discussions for 8-week courses (4 preferred), and at least 4 discussions for full-semester courses (6-8 preferred). Students should be required to respond to at least two classmates to receive full credit. How much credit to give is up to you as the instructor.

Welcome to the Course Video (Required)
Please create a video and place it on the About This Course page. You can record a videoLinks to an external site. in the text editor on a Canvas page. In this video, please address the following prompts:

  • Tell your students a bit about yourself and explain your goals for the course.
  • Go over the syllabus. Be sure to talk about the course outcomes & academic integrity.
  • Explain any special policies (grading/late work/etc.)
  • Explain any special or larger projects

Suggestions
Unused assignments are not to be published and ideally would be deleted from the course. Doing so will dramatically declutter the gradebook.

Pre and Post Test (Optional)
Consider utilizing a pre-and post-test to track learner improvement as well as course quality.

Plagiarism Detection
Consider using Turnitin for plagiarism and A.I. detection. It is available in your courseLinks to an external site.. Turnitin also allows for students to submit a rough draft and see their originality score. This would allow for students to fix any problems and resubmit the assignment. To enable this, just edit the assignment settings to allow multiple submissionis.