Non-Credit (NC) FAQs

Overall Deployment

Q: What’s the timeline for launching this system? Not just making the platform available, but all of the support units are expecting (e.g. marketing, reporting, evaluation)?
A: Summer 2022
Q: Can we get an end-to-end user experience demo of the learner journey through the system?
A: Yes, eventually.
Q: To avoid confusion with U of I students, what shall we call our non-credit users?
A: Tentatively, “Learners,” which is also how Coursera refers to participants in courses hosted on that platform, but that may change.

Finances

Q: What is the costing model? How much does it cost our departments and learners?
A: The use of Canvas for non-credit courses is purchased as a bulk enrollment purchase. This works out to approximately $15 per registration transaction. Units may determine how much to charge for each offering. Registration fees will be collected by OPE and, after deducting the $15 per registration transaction fee, the balance will be transferred to the department hosting that offering.
Q: Who determines these costs and how?
A: Costs are calculated based on an assumption of how many registrations we expect, and are set based on a zero-sum expectation that passes revenues (after costs) to the programs. Since the revenues are managed in the pilot self-supporting program as “ledger 3” funds, if total enrollments fall below expectations, then revenues will still be paid out using the $15/enrollment fixed cost, with the expectation that later growth will generate sufficient revenue to offset any initial deficits. Ultimately, programs can expect to receive their registration fees less the $15 cost deduction regardless of total enrollments for the program.
Q: What are the contract terms, particularly duration?
A: The contract for non-credit use of Canvas is based on an initial expectation of annual enrollments, and will be renewed every two years.
Q: What pathway affords units to a way to offer offerings for free?
A: We are looking at a campus implementation of the open-source version of Canvas that could support free course offerings. We expect that this open-source version may not have all of the features available in the versions of Canvas we use for degree, non-degree, and non-credit programs, but we expect it will suffice for these purposes.

Support Services

Q: If learners are not U of I students, what code of conduct (toward faculty, peers, the institution; academic integrity) applies to them?
A: Non-credit courses can be designed as stand-alone self-paced courses that require no interaction from any UIUC faculty or staff, but UIUC faculty or staff may certainly engage non-credit course takers. Academic integrity will be expected of these non-credit course takers (as e.g. expected of our Coursera MOOC takers) but through registration-time agreement to course policies.
Q: What marketing will be done for NC courses?
A: CITL will provide a certain level of brand marketing for the entire catalog of NC offerings.
Q: Will NC learners have access to Illinois’ Library? What about site license software such as Microsoft Office?
A: No. Non-credit course takers do not pay tuition or fees, do not get an i-card, access to licensed software, and do not get e.g. enrolled UIUC student access to the library (though our libraries are open to the public).  Non-degree students are UIUC students and do get an i-card and access to some of these services. Students enrolled in an online program that does not require any on-campus component pay tuition but not fees, and so do not have access to some facilities funded by such fees.

Registration, Enrollment, and User Management

Q: How will enrollment/registration happen? Unmediated by CITL?
A: For NC courses, registration fee collection, user account creation, and course enrollments will be handled in an automated fashion. (For ND programs, recruitment, enrollment, and registration can be supported by the CITL Enrollment Management team headed by Erica Albin.)
Q: Can the NC registration system collect information beyond that required to create an account (email, password) such as associated agency, phone number, and other program-specific questions?
A: Even though NC course takers are not enrolled UIUC students, we should treat them with the same respect for their private information. NC students are not covered by FERPA, but we should provide that same level of protection for NC course takers (to the extent possible in a course offering that is available to the general public.) With that understanding, the collection of information on these NC course takers would be helpful to everyone involved.
Q: Can some of that program-specific information be required (e.g. “I attest that I have read such-and-such required doc”)?
A: Yes. This becomes an even more important step for self-paced courses that are designed to not require continuous UIUC staff monitoring.
Q: Can administrators have further subdivided permissions? E.g. to manipulate and/or only view data only specific to “their” learners? (Campus administrators vs. program administrators vs. company administrators vs. instructors)
A: Yes, to the extent supported by the learning management systems.
Q: Can learners cancel their registration (and get a refund)? Are those cancellations included in reporting?
A: Yes, though we have not yet defined the specifics of this process.
Q: Are there any prohibitions against someone taking both a non-credit and credit-bearing versions of the same course?
A: No, we simply need to safeguard FERPA information.

Offering Management

Q: Can the system enforce prerequisite requirements before allowing a learner to enroll in a given course?
A: Any prerequisite requirements would need to be affirmed by the NC course taker unless the program can provide the staffing necessary to approve such prerequisites. In general NC courses are designed for the general public, and designed to carefully communicate the expectations of prerequisite knowledge. When an individual registers for an NC course, they should feel well informed about these expectations.
Q: Can offerings be given an enrollment cap?
A: These NC courses are usually designed for scale, especially if they are self-paced standalone courses. An NC course can be designed to be synchronous and/or staffed and may impose enrollment caps as needed.
Q: Can learners be waitlisted for offerings over the enrollment cap? Can learners be notified automatically when an available seat opens up?
A: Yes, but we have not yet worked out the details of how this will be implemented.
Q: Can an offering be canceled? If so, can a message be sent to all associated with the offering?
A: Yes.
Q: Can we send registration info to other LMSes?
A: Yes, the NC registration processing systems have general interoperability that enables this in most common situations.

Course Production and Management

Q: Who develops NC courses? And what’s that timeline?
A: Units are not required to use any particular model for NCcourse development. OPE can provide templates and best practices. Units may also request development support from CITL which can range from single consultations all the way through entire course development. Questions about CITL support can be directed to citl-pm@illinois.edu.
Q: What are the copyright considerations for NC courses? How do they differ from credit courses?
A: As NC courses are not limited to fully-enrolled students of the University of Illinois, some of the educational fair use affordances instructors enjoy when offering courses to enrolled UIUC students do not apply. For further guidance, please contact CITL’s copyright team at biancon1@illinois.edu.
Q: Can new offerings be created based on previous offerings?
A: Yes, within the Canvas LMS, it is quite easy to create a new course site or offering based on an existing one.
Q: Can offerings be archived after X days? Can learners retain access in a read-only state once archived?
A: This is a best practice, and we will work with the LMS options to best enable this for the longest, most practical duration possible. In the meantime, another option is to set all assignments to “unavailable.”
Q: Can learners be notified X days before/after the start/end of an offering of custom messaging?
A: You can schedule Announcements for a specific day to post in the announcements forum, but only for an open course. Thus you cannot use this tool before the course opens. You have to specify an exact date, not a relative date. Note: learners can choose in Canvas to disable notifications sent in this manner. As an alternative, rosters can be exported and used in an email client.

Non-credit (NC) Canvas Functionality

Q: Can Zoom be used in NC Canvas courses?
A: Instructors who are faculty/staff at Illinois may use their institutional Zoom accounts to create Zoom sessions as needed for their course. Learners do not have access to Illinois’ institutional license for Zoom.
Q: Can Kaltura/Illinois Media Space be used in NC Canvas courses?
A: Instructors who are faculty/staff at Illinois may use their Kaltura accounts to create and embed video content in their course. Learners do not have the ability to create and upload media submissions as part of assignments. One solution may be to have learners upload media to YouTube and share the link as their submission. Instructors can also use the essay or file upload questions to allow students to upload a recording file, but learners would need access to an external tool in order to record the media.
Q: Will Single Sign-on (SSO) be available on NC Canvas?
A: No. Non-credit courses are designed for the general public, which also includes UIUC enrolled students. Students may need to create an account on the NC registration platform. In some cases (e.g. Coursera4Campus) UIUC students can get free access to Coursera NC courses through their UIUC Net ID.
Q: When NC Canvas is used to manage F2F offerings, can rosters be updated for (daily) attendance?
A: Canvas has an attendance tool called Roll Call. (“When you take attendance using Roll Call, Canvas automatically adds Attendance as an assignment. The default point value for attendance is 100 points.”) Some people do not care for it much. An alternative is to update a specially-formatted CSV file into Canvas as grades. Zoom-based sessions can benefit from a CSV export of attendees, though some manipulation would still be needed.
Q: Can NC Canvas mark completion based on viewing all required content?
A: Modules can have prerequisites and requirements. For example, you could have an orientation module with a page that you have to view or “mark as done” in order to unlock other modules. Mastery Paths are a more complex way of managing progression through a course/modules where you unlock content based on your performance. Doing really well can unlock different content than doing poorly, for instance.
Q: Can individual questions on a quiz be given their own time limit?
A: No, you would need separate quizzes for each question. Each quiz can be on a timer.
Q: What options exist for peers to grade one another?
A: There is peer review that can be used in Discussions & Assignments. You can manually or automatically assign reviewers. If you are grading how well the “reviewer” performed as a reviewer, you need to have the reviewer submit their reviews of other people in a separate assignment (which is just submitted to the teacher). Also, while peers can be given a rubric for evaluating their peers, or can just leave a suggested score and feedback, these do not apply as final scores. A teacher still needs to assign grades.

Reporting

Q: Can recurring reports be auto-generated for a specific program: Total attendees per individual course offering, along with offering metadata (e.g. training location, duration)
A: Yes. We will depend on such reports to fine-tune courses and maximize their enrollments.
Q: Course offering completers organized by company name?
A: Yes, when available.
Q: Course offerings completed organized by each student within a designated company?
A: Yes, when available.
Office for Professional Education
Email: jch@illinois.edu