Overview

Learn how myLearning courses are structured, as well as how to navigate and search them.

How courses are structured

How course are structured

To understand how myLearning courses are structured, it's important to first understand how pages and modules work. Pages are where you will add your course content. Modules are what you will then use to organise your pages into clear learning sequences (you can also add other types of content to modules, like assignments).

You can think of modules and pages like folders and files on your computer. Just as you store files in folders on a computer, you store pages in modules in myLearning. You can also add text headers to your modules, like you would add subfolders into other folders, to further organise your module content.

Coming from UniSA learnonline?

In learnonline, courses are structured into sections and subsections. In myLearning, a module is like a section, and a page is like a subsection.

Canvas modules vs curriculum modules

You may have heard of something called a curriculum module. Curriculum modules are different to the Canvas modules described above. A curriculum module is a collection of related topics in a course's curriculum. Canvas modules are used to display these curriculum modules in myLearning (as well as other course administration content). Each curriculum module will be split into topics, which each topic having its own Canvas module (i.e. you will require one Canvas module per curriculum module topic).

The AU Course Template

In myLearning, you will create and organise your modules in accordance with the AU Course Template. The AU Course Template is used to help ensure a consistent approach to course structure and navigation across the institution. The Template does not dictate what content you include in your courses, or how content is displayed on pages (though, it does provide recommendations for page design).

Navigating courses

Navigating courses

When you open a course, you will see its homepage. To navigate to other areas of a course, you will use the left-hand course navigation menu.

Note that menu items with a crossed-out-eye icon against their name are hidden to learners, though, some items do not have this icon but are always hidden to learners anyway (more information further on). You can show/hide the course navigation menu (for yourself only) by selecting the hamburger icon above the menu.

Overviews of the default course navigation menu items are provided in the table below (with links to relevant Learning Centre training resources). The table also indicates which items are hidden to learners by default (and can be unhidden), or hidden to learners always (and cannot be unhidden). Note as well that some items may temporarily appear hidden if they contain no content (e.g. 'Announcements', 'Assignments').

Menu item	Function
Home	View the course homepage.
Announcements	Access the Announcements Index to create announcements to notify learners of important course information and/or events.
Modules	Access your course modules, where course content is presented to learners.
Recordings	Access Panopto, the myLearning video management platform. This is where you will view, record, edit and store your course's video content, and where learners will view recordings of live classes.
Assignments	Access the Assignments Index to create and manage assignments in your course.
Course Readings	Access your course readings list, where you will collate and present course readings to learners.
Ed Discussion	Access Ed Discussion, where you will create and manage course discussion forums.
Grades	Access the Gradebook to view and manage learner assignment grades.
People	View a list of the educators and learners enrolled in your course, and create and manage learner groups.
Item Banks	Access the Item Banks Index to create and manage item banks (groups of questions) for your quizzes.
UDOIT	Access Cidi Labs UDOIT, which you can use to check the accessibility of all content within your course.
TidyUP	Access Cidi Labs TidyUP, which you can use to check for and manage unused course content.
Files	Manage files stored in your course, such as images and documents.
Quizzes	Access the Quizzes Index to create and manage quizzes. This is hidden to learners by default as graded quizzes will also appear under the Assignments Index.
Rubrics	Access the Rubrics Index to create and manage assignment rubrics.
Outcomes	View and manage course outcomes.
Pages	Access the Pages Index to view a list of all the pages in your course.
Collaborations	Access the Collaborations tool, where you can generate shared documents for learner groups to collaborate on (e.g. generate a Word document that is automatically shared with all learners within a specific course group).
Search	Search your course for specific search terms.
Settings	Access and manage your course settings.

Modifying the course navigation menu

The items available/hidden in the course navigation menu by default, as well as the order in which they appear, are set by the AU Course Template. To ensure a consistent experience for learners, it is recommended that you do not modify the course navigation menu, including to reorder items, unless there is a course-specific need to do so. For example, to enable a menu item necessary for your course that is hidden to learners by default. If you do need to modify the course navigation menu, refer to Canvas's guide for instructions.

Searching courses

Searching courses

myLearning has a course search feature called Atomic Search that allows you to search your courses for specific content. Modules, pages, files, assignments, discussions and external URL content (i.e. the content of webpages you link to) are all searchable (whether published or unpublished).

You can search your course(s) by selecting 'Search' in the global navigation menu (to search all courses you're enrolled in) or the course navigation menu (to search the individual course you have open). Alternatively, you can use the search bar in the top-right of Canvas. Using this from outside of a course will search all courses you're enrolled in, whereas using it from within a course will search that specific course. The search bar is also available to account admins to search all courses within an account.

After conducting a search, you will be presented with your search results, including previews. Results can be filtered. Selecting a search result will open it (e.g. selecting a page will take you to that page).

Learner use of course search

Learners can search their courses using the same methods you can. The only difference between you and your learners' searches is that search results for learners will not include unpublished content.

FYI, this means that learner search results will include anything that is published, including pages and files that aren't accessible via intended course navigation (e.g. outdated pages that you've removed from your modules, but not unpublished). So, make sure you unpublish course content when it's no longer needed!

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