How Do I Configure the Delphinium Course Settings?
Delphinium centralizes some settings that are used by multiple Delphinium components in the Delphinium Course Setting tab. Not all Delphinium layouts contain components that use all, or even any, of these settings. However, it is good practice to configure these settings at the beginning of each semester or term when you first set up your Delphinium page. Most of these settings are configured during the Delphinium onboarding steps and can be edited in the Delphinium Course Settings. These settings include:
Start Date
End Date
Max Points
Grading Period
Course Organization
Grading Style
Display Size
Course Home Page
Open the Delphinium Course Settings
On the Delphinium page, in Teacher or Periscope View, click the Settings icon in the top right corner of the page
The "Settings" dialog will open.
If necessary, select the Course tab.
The “Delphinium Course Settings” tab will be displayed.
Configure Start and End Dates
Set the Start Date and End Date for the course.
Notes:
These should be the first and last day that students can earn points in the class. These values will be used by Delphinium components to show students their progress in the course. For example, the Milestone Tracker, Grade Tracker, and Course Count Down components use these values to track a student's progress.
If you configure these values in the Canvas course settings before you load the Delphinium page for the first time, Delphinium will copy these values from the Canvas course settings.
These dates do not need to match the start and end date configured in Canvas. For example, if you want students to submit all their work a few days before the end of a term, you can set the end date earlier.
If the course is using grading periods, these dates will reflect the grading period you are currently viewing.
You can type the date directly into input field or you can use the date picker popup that appears when you click in the input field
Use the arrows to navigate months
Click the month and year title to skip directly to a month or year
Click a date to add it to the date input field
Configure Max Points
Delphinium uses "max points" to calculate when to give awards like prize boxes and avatar levels. In 0-based grading courses, max points are used to calculate the 0-based grading scale.
Set the Max Points for the course.
If you do not know how many points are in the class, Delphinium can count them for you by clicking either the All Points, or Published Points Only buttons.
Notes:
The Max Points for a course should equal the number of points considered a "perfect score" in the course. This value depends on how you design your course.
For most courses, this will be the sum of all of the points possible on assignments
If you will be adding or removing assignments, you will need to estimate what the max points will be at the end of the class. One way to estimate is to look at how many points were available at the end of a previous version of the course. You can change this value later if necessary. If you are unsure, it is better to estimate a little high. If you need to lower max points later, it will only help students unlock more awards. If you guess low, and raise it later, some students may be frustrated when awards they received are relocked. If it becomes clear that your max points estimate is too high, you should lower it, otherwise students will never reach the top awards.
For a 0-based-grading course, this number is the "max score" from which grade levels are computed, even if there are more points available in the course
In a 0-based-grading course, you might create an effect similar to "extra-credit" by setting the Total Points lower than points possible on assignments so that there are more points possible than the configured "perfect score"
If the course is using grading periods, this value will reflect the max points for the grading period you are using
Select a Grading Period
If your Canvas account uses grading periods, then you can select the grading period to display in Delphinium. Learn more about grading periods in Canvas here:
In Delphinium, grading periods are used to filter which assignments to display. When a grading period is selected, only assignments with due dates that fall within that grading period will be displayed in Delphinium components and the Delphinium Gradebook. Items with no due date are displayed in the last grading period.
Each grading period has its own Start Date, End Date, and Max Points. You must configure each by selecting the Grading Period from the drop down list and updating the fields. Start and End Date will be prepopulated using the Grading Period dates, but you can overwrite these values.
Teachers can select which Grading period to view in their own view, and they can use the Set all students to this Grading Period check box to change all students' grading period view at the same time. Students can also change which grading period they are viewing in the Student Settings.
Select How Course Content is Organized
This setting controls which content components like box content and iris content display.
Select how content is organized for students in this course: Modules or Assignment Groups.
Notes:
All courses contain at least one assignment group
Assignment groups can only contain content with scores, like quizzes, discussions, and assignments
Modules can contain other content like pages, links, and files
Modules can be used to control content access using time locks, prerequisites, mastery paths, and requirements
Select a Grading Style
Select whether or not your course uses 0 or % based grading.
Notes:
%-based grading
Students start at 100% and likely work their way down
Students can view their grade in Delphinium or Canvas
This is the traditional way of tracking grade progress and will be familiar to most students
0-based grading
Students start at 0 points and work their way up the grading scale, similar to how a video game tracks progress
Students must view their grade in Delphinium, the Canvas grade display will not match
0-based grading is less common. Read this tutorial to learn more about the differences between the two grading style: 0 vs % Based Grading
0-based grading displays the grade in a way that will be unfamiliar to most students. You should not use 0-based grading unless you have a clear understanding of how it works and have explained it clearly to your students.
Select a Display Size
Display size is the "zoom" level that Delphinium is displayed at for a specific user. It is useful for users to adapt how Delphinium is displayed depending on their screen size or for accessibility reasons.
Select a "Display Size": Small, Medium, or Large.
Note: Changing this setting does not affect other users. Students can select their own display size in the Student Settings.
Make Delphinium the Course Home Page
It is often a good idea to make Delphinium the Canvas course home page. This will display Delphinium as the first page that students see when they enter a course.
Click Make Delphinium the Course Home Page to make Delphinium the Canvas course home page.
Note: If necessary, you can change your home page again in the Canvas settings. See this link for details:
Save Delphinium Course Settings
Click Save to save changes to Delphinium course settings.
The page will reload.
Advanced Delphinium Course Settings
Click Advanced to open advanced Delphinium course settings.
Note: Most courses will not use these settings, they are available for advanced users. You should not use any of these features unless you are sure they will improve how Delphinium works in your course.
Three more settings will appear:
Student Filter - Filter which student data to include in Delphinium components by indicating how many days of submissions to include (Use "0" for all days). Students who have not submitted an assignment in that range will not be included in components that show data from multiple students at the same time, like the Leaderboard or blue dots in Grade Tracker. This setting is useful for courses in which students can add and conclude at any time and that operate for long periods of time.
Custom CSS - Users with an understanding of CSS can inspect Delphinium's HTML elements and change the appearance of Delphinium in this course by adding custom CSS to override the default CSS settings. We do not recommend this option. Delphinium's CSS has been designed to be ADA compliant and visually consistent to improve usability. Any custom CSS should be carefully considered.
Display Weighted Points in Delphinium - Display points and points possible as their true value in Delphinium using Canvas assignment group weights. This allows students to understand how each assignment truly affects their final grade. The calculation for converting weighted scores and points possible is as follows:
Total points in the class = 100% of the points
Total points in an assignment group/total points in class = Group's actual weight
Canvas group weight/Group actual weight = Factor to convert to "true" values for group's assignments
Factor * assignments' points possible and score = "true" values
True values are displayed in Delphinium
Note: The best option is to not use assignment group weights and give assignments their true point value directly. But if you must use assignment group weights, this setting will let you show each assignment's true value in Delphinium. However, this setting will not affect how assignments' points and points possible are displayed in Canvas. The difference between the two may cause some confusion for students. If you enable this setting, you will need to educate students, so they understand why the values are different.
Bleeding Edge - This setting is a way for us to get customer feedback by activating unfinished upcoming features in this course. We are always working on new ways to improve Delphinium. By setting Bleeding Edge to "on" you can get a peek at what we are working on. But you should NOT use bleeding edge features in a live course. These features are NOT ready for prime time and will almost certainly break. When features are ready, we will move them out of Bleeding Edge mode for you to use.