This guide is written in support of the Yale College Registration activities for creating preregistration applications should you need to limit and manage course enrollments for the coming term.
Instructors cannot use Canvas Assignments, Discussion, or Quiz activities to administer / facilitate Preregistration Applications. Only users who are officially enrolled in your course (not just viewing your Canvas Syllabus page from Yale Course Search) can actively engage in Canvas activities.
Instructors may use the Canvas Syllabus page to link to external survey tools or provide Preregistration Application instructrions specific for their course / department.
NOTE: Conducting preregistration applications and accepting students does not prevent students from using the Canvas Worksheet to be added to your Canvas course site as a "Visitor" during registration and the add / drop period.
Instructors should contact Visitors who added the course to their Canvas Worksheet after selections have been finalized to tell those students to remove the course from their Canvas Workseet.
Talk to your departmental registrar to see if there are options to prevent students from registering for your course without instructor permission.
Table of Contents
This article will address the following information:
Informing Students a Preregistration Application is Required
Preregistration requirements can be mentioned in the FAS Expanded Course Description in the Canvas Syllabus tool, but it is also advised to put a note in the Class Notes section of the Yale Course Search course record as well.
Preregistration Recommendations:
- Manage course enrollments by local and established practice within your department.
- Use a survey for your student applications. The link to the survey can be posted in Canvas course site's Syllabus tool (making it also visible in Yale Course Search) or emailed directly to students. It is also advised to put a note in the Class Notes section of the Yale Course Search course record as well.**
- Use Section Management* to limit enrollment in lectures through controlling the number of discussion sections available to students. Contact your departmental registrar or administrative assistant for more information.
- Use Preference Selection* to gather student interest and notify select students that they have a seat in the course offering.
* The use of the Section Management and Preference Selection systems varies by department, and will require you to work closely with your registrar or administrative assistants in your department. This is NOT managed or done in Canvas. This work will need to be completed before preregistration begins.
**Faculty should contact their registrar to get information, including a link to their application, added to Class Notes in Yale Course Search. The registrars will add it to a field called "Section Text" in CourseLeaf WEN, and this will update the Yale Course Search course record.
Please contact your department DUS or DUS Admin Assistant if you have any questions about preregistration process for your course.
Creating a Preregistration Survey
There are several tools that you can use to create your preregistration application survey, which ensures that your prospective students can fill out the form well in advance of being officially enrolled in your Canvas course site.
The following tutorial video will show you how to create a Microsoft Survey. These instructions are also listed below for your reference.
Create a New Survey & Share Link
- Navigate to the Yale Microsoft Office 365 suite online: https://forms.office.com/
- Click “Sign In” or “Get Started”
- Enter your Yale email address and click “Next”
- Enter your Yale NetID password
- Click “Sign In” again and “No”
- You might need to click “Get Started” again and re-enter your email address
- Click “Create a New Form” or “New Form”
- Click on “Untitled” to rename the form
- Add a description (e.g. Course Name & Number or Section)
- Click “Add New” to create a new question
- Select the question type (multiple choice, text entry, rating, ranking, file upload, etc.)
- Enter the question and answer options
- After adding all questions, click “Share”
- Change the settings as desired; it is recommended that you switch to “Anyone with the link can respond” for ease of use
- Copy the link
Post your Microsoft Survey link in Canvas Syllabus
- Go to your course site in Canvas.
- Click on the "Syllabus" tool
- On the Syllabus page, click "Edit"
- Once you are in edit mode, click to place your cursor where you want the survey link to appear and paste the URL
- Click the "Save" button
Additional Help
Create a New Form & Share Link
If you are an EliApps (Yale's Google for Education) user, you can use your EliApps account to create your form. However, not all students get EliApps accounts so you WILL NOT want to require users from your organization to log in.
- Follow the instructions on How to use Google Forms to create your form
- Make sure that you check and update the settings for your form as appropriate
- Once you have your form ready, make sure you have your Google form open and in the top right of the page, click "Send"
- At the top of the window, click "Link"
- To copy the link that appears, click "Copy" or press Ctrl + c (Windows) or ⌘ + c (Mac) on your keyboard
Post your Google Form link in Canvas Syllabus
- Go to your course site in Canvas
- Click on the "Syllabus" tool
- On the Syllabus page, click "Edit"
- Once you are in edit mode, click to place your cursor where you want the form link to appear and paste the URL
- Click the "Save" button
Retrieve Results from Google Form
- Follow the instructions on how to view and manage form responses