Background

UW-Madison academic programs that need to use the campus LMS (currently Canvas) for non-timetable lifelong-learning purposes (also sometimes called "noncredit programs") may choose to use the "L3 process." This fully automated process ensures that every registrant for your program can access your learning materials in the campus LMS (Canvas) immediately after completing registration for your program.

Canvas may be used by any UW-Madison program; no special agreement is required regardless of what type of credential/credit your program offers or does not offer. See Canvas - FAQs for Noncredit Courses [UW-Madison].

1. Either issues the learner a UW-Madison NetID or verifies that the learner's existing NetID is ready to be used.
2. Adds this learner to the appropriate course-site roster(s) in the campus LMS.
3. Directs the learner to the campus LMS to begin accessing the course website(s).

• Lifelong Learners (L3) - Enrollment Process.

Required Steps to Get Started

1. Do you need a registration system (such as for handling payments, reporting, customer service, etc)?
   1. No: You may not need a registration system if you will always be manually uploading your lists (spreadsheets) of participants who need Canvas access, or manually adding single participants who need Canvas access.
   2. Yes: Establish or verify a business relationship between the academic unit and the registration system.
      1. The Continuing Education Registration Center, an office within the Division of Continuing Studies, manages the main UW-Madison registration system that is integrated with the L3 process. Others have been integrated at the request and expense of other campus units.
2. Optional: Identify a "Canvas subaccount administrator" within your unit or School/College who can occasionally help your staff with Canvas administration when necessary. Note that DoIT requires an annual re-certification process for all Canvas subaccount administrators (consisting of passing an online Canvas knowledge test). 
   1. To become a Canvas subaccount administrator, see: Canvas - Account Roles and Permissions [UW-Madison]
   2. It may be simpler to delay this request until you have made it to step 4 below, in case your Canvas subaccount will not even exist until then. (See explanation in Step 3 next).
3. Contact CSIS support at csis-support@lists.wisc.edu to create a CSIS ("Continuing Studies Information System") instance for the new academic unit. Support documents for CSIS are hosted here: https://kb.wisc.edu/csis/ with the L3-specific parts described here: [Link for document 65478 is unavailable at this time].
   1. In your request to CSIS support, specify:
      1. Names and NetIDs of staff in your unit who will be CSIS users, and which of those should have CSIS administrator privileges.
      2. Names and email addresses of relevant representatives from your academic unit to add to the the csis-lms@lists.wisc.edu email distribution list, so that you will be contacted with any issues/news/questions in the future related to using the L3 process.
   2. The first time you do step #4 below, CSIS will automatically create a new Canvas "Subaccount" that contains all of your future LMS spaces (and no one else's). Therefore be sure to also specify in your request:
      1. The academic-unit name you want displayed in Canvas to your staff and your learners as the folder in which all of your courses are found.
      2. In Canvas the letters "L3" will be added to the beginning of your Canvas subaccount name. However, your Canvas Subaccount Administrator (or the Lifelong Learning parent Subaccount Administrator or a campus-level Canvas administrator) can manually rename that category at any point in the future.
      3. A commonly used short abbreviation or acronym for your unit. DoIT may contact you for other options if a different name is needed.
4. Set up the individual lifelong-learning programs (conventionally called "courses") in your registration system (usually USI) and CSIS. The CSIS part of the process will automatically create your empty Canvas course shell. See  NCPD - CSIS - LMS Spaces - How to Create and Disassociate
5. Specify phone and e-mail contact information that DoIT Help Desk can include on their internal KB doc #67129. When HelpDesk agents need to redirect a learner to your unit for help, they will provide this contact information to the learner. Send this contact information to CSIS Support csis-support@lists.wisc.edu who can ask that it be added to document #67129.