We support a variety of tools designed to enhance pedagogical objectives and enliven student participation. IT and Media Services (ITMS) staff collaborate directly with faculty, teaching fellows, faculty assistants, and students, offering our support to maximize student engagement and ongoing learning. In addition, we offer personalized consultations on your course. For consultation, contact us at coursesites@hds.harvard.edu.
Canvas course website support for Faculty and Staff
Every course in the HDS catalog has a website on the Canvas platform, where you can:
- Post syllabi, assignments, readings, handouts, links and other resources
- Use modules and assignment tools to organize teaching materials
- Allow students to turn in papers digitally and teaching staff to grade them online
- Facilitate communication between students and teaching staff
ITMS provides website support for all courses offered by HDS. Cross-listed FAS course offerings are typically supported by the FAS Academic Technology Group.
Canvas course website support for Students
Our staff is available by appointment to give students one-on-one tutorials with any aspect of the Canvas platform. Email coursesites@hds.harvard.edu.
Academic Technology Consultants
Academic Technology Consultants (ATCs) are graduate students with competencies in Canvas, media and A/V services, classroom technologies, and commonly used software programs. We welcome requests from faculty, faculty assistants, and teaching fellows for course-related technology projects, including consulting, digitization, web development, assessment tools, and course website administration for HDS courses. In addition to these services, our ATC team provides technology training and education to faculty, faculty assistants, teaching fellows, and students. Our ATCs can help you identify your teaching challenges and then offer tools, technologies and methodologies to solve them.
Content Organization
We can help organize your course content so it is easy for your students to find information, and easy for your teaching team to administer. We can help you enhance your teaching with course modules, design assessments to reinforce learning, and implement new tools and resources.
Syllabus Review Sessions
A well-designed syllabus should give your students an overview of what to expect in your course at a glance. We can review your site to help find where you may have missed something. Are you discussing a book on week five that’s never made it to the reading list? Do you have too few assignments for you to assess learning, and students to assess themselves? Or too many that may only serve as busy work? We can work through all of this with you to design your best course.