Preparing for Your Course

CourseWorks is Columbia’s learning management system, supported by Canvas. It is the online portal you can use to facilitate communication with your students. Each course at the University automatically receives a CourseWorks site. You must post your syllabus on CourseWorks, but you can do so much more. Courseworks allows you (and your students) to interact with your course site from a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. It is user friendly and intuitive. You can:

  • post course announcements and assignments,
  • view your class roster,
  • email the whole class or individual students,
  • upload files for your students,
  • collect, grade, and return assignments,
  • organize your class into sections for group projects, and
  • keep track of student progress and tabulate final grades.

Columbia Center of Teaching and Learning is the office that supports this technology. They have created supplemental documents and videos to introduce faculty to Courseworks. Visit them for all the ways the Center can support your use of Courseworks.

To Access Courseworks

To find your course site, visit Courseworks@Columbia and click on “UNI Login." You’ll be asked for your UNI and password unless you've recently logged into any of Columbia's online systems. Once in, you’ll see a colored button with the name of your course. Click on it and you will have access to change and add what you need for your students.

Every course offered by the Theatre Program must have a syllabus. This syllabus must include the following:

  • the details of the course – meeting day and times, 
  • contact information for the faculty member (Columbia email only please),
  • a course description, including the course objectives,
  • the requirements of the course (e.g., assignments, readings, final project, etc.) along with their due dates,
  • a complete list of all required and recommended texts for the course,
  • the criteria for grading and how student work will be assessed, including penalties (if any) for late submission,
  • the attendance and late policy (the Program’s or your own),
  • the Theatre Program’s Academic Integrity and Honesty Policy, and,
  • a schedule of the course (this can be a weekly schedule, or based on the course content).

Some syllabi examples can be found here. At least one (1) week before the start of classes, please upload your syllabus to your course site on CourseWorks in addition to emailing it to the Program Office for our records and reference.