Canvas @ Yale

Understanding Canvas @ Yale Umbrella Sites

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Umbrella sites are typically used by multi-section courses to enable the course director to provide information for all sections in one place. Instructors for the sections have the option of posting documents and announcements for their own sections.

Umbrella sites are not the same as official cross-listed courses. If your course needs to be officially cross-listed, please contact your registrar to have your course information updated to identify your specific courses as being cross-listed.

To request an Umbrella Site, please fill out and submit the Umbrella Request Form.

Purpose of an Umbrella Site

The purpose of an umbrella site is to provide a site that can contain information useful for a number of sections, usually with the same name (e.g. SPAN 115 01, SPAN 115 02, SPAN 115 03). The course director may also use the Email or Announcement tools to communicate with students across all sections.

The umbrella would be called, for example, SPAN 115 00 to which Canvas @ Yale will automatically add all participants from the ‘sections’ to the umbrella site.

Discussion sections are different and are not created by umbrella sites. These are sections within a large lecture course and each is taught by a TA.

Types of Umbrella Sites

  1. Section-retained Umbrella site: A new course site is created which has all the enrollments from the individual sections. The individual section course sites remain intact.
  2. Section-merged Umbrella site: Individual course sections are collapsed into one course site. Select this option if section awareness within files is not needed.
Click here to see a comparison of official cross-listings and umbrella sites
  Official Course Cross-Listing Canvas Umbrella Site
Section-Merged Section-Retained
Combines sections for different courses together
Example: SPAN 267 01; LAST 267 01; LITR 258 01; etc...
YES NO NO
Combines multiple sections for a single course
Example: SPAN 110 01; SPAN 110 02; SPAN 110 03; etc...
NO YES YES
Canvas Impact
Creates one combined Canvas site only YES YES NO
Creates one combined Canvas site PLUS retaining individual section sites NO NO YES
In combined site, instructor can see which course/section the student registered for NO YES YES
Other Yale System Impacts
Combines Courses/Sections in Course Evaluations System YES NO NO
Combines Courses/Sections in Faculty Grading System YES NO NO
Links Courses/Section in Yale Course Search YES NO NO
How to Request
Contact Information: Contact Departmental / School Registrar Canvas @ Yale Support:
Umbrella Site Reqeust Form
Canvas @ Yale Support:
Umbrella Site Reqeust Form

In order to request an umbrella site, please fill out the following form: Umbrella Request Form

**Please allow up to 3 business days for the Umbrella Site to be created. We appreciate your patience**

For more help, please contact [email protected].

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