Canvas - HelioCampus AC Course Syllabus Tool - Known Issues [UW-Madison]

The UW-Madison Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) tool is hosted in HelioCampus AC (Formerly AEFIS) and available to UW-Madison instructors via Canvas. This document describes expected behaviors and known issues of the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) tool.

 

Instructor Only Sees One Section of Merged Course

Instructors can only edit the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) when their courses match the listing within SIS (Student Information System). If sections have been merged into one Canvas course, only one syllabus is available to edit.

Affects

All manually merged courses.

Status

This is expected behavior that is caused by manually merged courses.

Workarounds

Instructors can create the syllabus for the other section within HelioCampus AC and save as a PDF. However, the Syllabus button within Canvas will only display the one.


Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) Displays the Wrong Number of Credits for Variable Credit Courses

For courses that can be taken for a variable number of credits, the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) displays the highest number of credits a student can take (e.g. 4 credits for a 3-4 credit course).

Affects

All variable credit courses.

Workarounds

No known workarounds.


Instructor Cannot Access the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) Tool

Only instructors listed in the Student Information System can edit the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC). Instructors who have been manually added to a course in Canvas will get an error when they try to do so.

Additionally, the Course Syllabus does not populate for courses without enrolled students. Instructors of courses with no SIS enrollments will receive an error message when they try to access the Course Syllabus tool that says "Error - A course section in HelioCampus AC relating to this LMS course was not found."

Affects

  • Users who do not have an instructor listing in SIS.
  • Courses with zero enrollments.

Status

This is expected behavior.

Workarounds

Instructors who should be listed in SIS but are not should contact their curricular representatives to get this updated.

There are no known workarounds for the zero enrollment error.


Instructor Cannot Edit Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC)

Instructors can only edit the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) when their course is in Faculty Pending status in HelioCampus AC. Courses are auto-published in HelioCampus AC during the first week of the semester, and instructors will not be able to edit Syllabus fields, including section-level learning outcomes after this time. However, they can edit any text files that they have created. Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) cannot be edited in HelioCampus AC. CLOs can only be changed in Lumen (usually through a course proposal).

Affects

All courses after the first week of a given semester.

Status

This is expected behavior.

Workaround

Contact the DoIT Help Desk. The Help Desk will forward a case to campus administrators who can change the status of the course back to Faculty Pending.


Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) Does Not Show Up in Canvas's Student View

Instructors who are previewing their course with Canvas's Student View option will get an error when trying to access the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC).

Affects

All Canvas courses.

Status

This is expected behavior. It is related to a broader issue with how Student View interacts with external tools, since the Syllabus is hosted in HelioCampus AC and pulled into Canvas through a plug-in.

Workaround

Despite not showing up in Student View, the Course Syllabus will show up to actual students.


Zero-Enrollment Course Sections and "Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC)"

When courses have no student enrollments, HelioCampus AC does not create the course. Therefore, Canvas has a problem with the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) tool. When an instructor attempts to access the Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) tool, they encounter an error: "Login Error - A course section in HelioCampus AC relating to this LMS course was not found." When an HelioCampus AC departmental administrator performs the same action, the screen displays the HelioCampus AC dashboard.

Affects

All Canvas courses with zero enrollment.

Status

This is expected behavior.

Workaround

This behavior is expected, therefore, there is no known workarounds.

Only One Meeting Location Listed for a Course Section

If a section meets in two different places during a semester, HelioCampus AC will only display one location as it only expects one.

If SIS has two (or more) locations listed, both would be sent to HelioCampus AC as part of the nightly data feed. When two are sent, the last one sent is displayed on the syllabus.



Keywordscanvas course syllabus AEFIS accreditation syllabi outcomes federal compliance template credit credits beta known issues limitations clos course learning objectives lti can't cannot edit error enrollments sis   Doc ID87079
OwnerLearn@UW MadisonGroupLearn@UW-Madison
Created2018-10-23 12:11:35Updated2024-03-08 16:53:13
SitesDoIT Help Desk, Learn@UW-Madison
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