How to Configure Canvas for Delphinium


In most cases, Delphinium only reads data from Canvas to create engaging and motivating experiences for students. This has the advantage of allowing you add Delphinium to ANY course very quickly. You will typically not need to make any change to your course to use Delphinium. 

However, there are a few Canvas settings that you can modify to improve how Delphinium works. These are described below and quick links are available to the right.


If You Are Copying a Canvas Course That Uses Delphinium...

If the content for your current course will be copied from another course that uses Delphinium, we recommend you follow these steps:

Grading Scheme

Delphinium uses the Canvas grading scheme to display students grade. Canvas has a default grading scheme, or you may wish to customize the grading scheme. Canvas provides the following tutorials for managing Canvas grading schemes:

Assignment Group Weights (Optional)

Canvas gives teachers the option to create groups of assignments. Canvas also allows teachers to weight assignment groups to change how they impact the final grade. For example, it is possible to have a 200 point exam worth 2% of the final grade and a 10 point quiz worth 80% of the final  grade. See the following to learn more about assignment group weights:

Where possible, avoid using assignment group weights. Ideally, a point is a point, is a point. This allows students to look at the possible point value for an assignment and know exactly how it will impact their grade. This is important because one of Delphinium's key functions is to make progress transparent to students. This transparency increases students' sense of control and increases motivation.

Assignment group weights obfuscate the value of a  point and adds an extra layer of computation for students to figure out. Using assignment group weights, a point in one assignment might be worth 10 times more, or half as much, as a point in another assignment. This makes it harder to predict the impact of an assignment on the final grade and decreases student's sense of control and motivation. We recommend that if you want an assignment to impact the final grade more or less, you directly change the number of points the assignment is worth instead of manipulating the point values using assignment group weights.

If you must use assignment group weights in your course with Delphinium, you will not be able to use a 0-based course design.

Course Start and End Date

Canvas includes the option to define the course start and end dates in settings. You can learn more about this feature here:

If you configure these values in canvas BEFORE you initialize delphinium in a course, these values will be copied to delphinium settings, otherwise, you will need to configure these settings in delphinium. See this link for more details:

Blueprint Courses

Canvas allows course designers to create a master copy of a course called a blueprint course that teachers can copy each semester or term. Canvas blueprint courses greatly simplify course management. You can learn more about this feature here:

You can enable Delphinium in a blueprint course and it will be included when the blueprint course is copied. When you initialize Delphinium in the copied course, it will detect the Delphinium settings from the course blueprint and give the teacher the option to copy the Delphinium layout and settings to the new course. It is also possible to copy the Delphinium layout and settings from a Blueprint course (or any other course using Delphinium) after a course is initialized, but only if the current course teacher is also configured as a teacher in the source course. You can learn more here:

Note: Delphinium must be enabled and configured in the blueprint or master course BEFORE you copy the Delphinium settings