Non-Credit Courses

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers non-credit courses to the general public (including UIUC faculty, staff and students) through Canvas Catalog (see below for details), Coursera, EdX and other MOOC platforms. These are each handled by a separate agreements. Please contact the Office for Professional Education for details. Note that the same non-credit courses can be offered simultaneously on several different platforms, which helps non-credit learners access Illinois educational opportunities on the platform that works best for them.

Canvas Catalog

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provides several options for offering online non-credit courses (e.g. MOOCs) using the Canvas LMS. The preferred option is Canvas Catalog, which allows instructors to make non-credit courses available to the general public. Canvas Catalog courses can be offered for free or can require a registration fee through its credit-card payment system. The Provost’s Office makes Canvas Catalog available without charge to support non-credit offerings from traditional self-supporting programs designed to reinvest revenues into professional education activities. A new “pilot” self-supporting fund is available that allows revenues to be utilized more generally, but such programs are required to reimburse the Provost’s Office for their use of the Canvas Catalog platform. Non-credit courses that are intended to be offered for free can also use Canvas Free-for-Teachers if offered to the general public, or the campus Canvas LMS if offered only to UIUC faculty, staff and/or students.

 Canvas CatalogCanvas Free-for-TeachersCampus Canvas LMS
URLillinois.instructure.comcanvas.instructure.comcanvas.illinois.edu
DescriptionNon-credit (e.g. MOOC, certification, boot camp) courses available to the general public for a fee.Non-credit (e.g. MOOC, certification, boot camp) courses available to the general public for free.Non-credit (e.g. professional development) courses available only to faculty, staff and enrolled students at UIUC for free.
Instructor AccountsInstructure account using illinois.edu e-mail address. Contact the Canvas Catalog support team to request an instructor account.Instructure account using illinois.edu e-mail address. Instructors create their own account at this Use Canvas for Free page. .Instructors already have accounts through their netID.
Course CreationContact the Canvas Catalog support team to request a new course shell.See the Making Courses Public section in this Canvas FFT FAQ.Use this UIUC Tech Services form and select either Open Learning Space or Training Space.
Course
Launch
Open registration managed by Canvas Catalog. Use this form to set up the listing on Canvas Catalog.Once course is complete, click Publish on the home page. Course is then available by link and join code.Course offering restricted to only students, faculty and staff, so will need to use programmatic resources for communication of the offering.
Registration FeesLearner registration fees might be required, depending on program (traditional self-supporting of pilot self-supporting). Contact Anne Marshall (marshal@illinois.edu) for more details.Not required. Covered by Instructure’s Canvas Free-for-Teachers program.Not required. Included in UIUC agreement with Instructure.
SupportLearners provided 24-7 Tier 1 support by Instructure.Provided by Instructure knowledge base, community postings and general public support structure.Tech support request to Tech Services.
AdministrationOffice for Professional EducationInstructureUIUC Tech Services
FunctionalityOpen Canvas/Canvas Catalog is a full-functionality instance.Canvas Free for Teachers is hosted on a basis of limited functionality, but many instructors may find it has all they need. Consult the comparison chart for Free for Teachers for more information.Campus Canvas is a full-functionality instance.