The Calendar tool within CarmenCanvas offers helpful options for communication and organization in your course. Using the Calendar tool you can set up:
- Appointment Groups: This feature allows you to offer available sign-up times for Office Hours, TA hours, or other one-on-one or small group meetings with your students. Once set up, students can sign up for and/or reschedule appointment times that you have made available to them directly from within their own Carmen Calendar.
- Events: You can also add additional events to the course calendar. These might include events such as study groups, guest speakers, or other events happening around campus that you would like students to be aware of.
- Assignments: Adding assignments for your course directly into the Calendar tool will also add the assignment to the Assignments Page, Grade book, and Syllabus page (if applicable).
- My To Dos: The My To Dos option provides a way to set reminders for yourself that are not seen by the rest of the class. You might use the To Dos to set a reminder to send out a weekly course announcement, to grade a specific assignment by a certain day, or any other tasks that might help you stay organized and manage course tasks.
How to Set Up and Schedule Appointment Times in CarmenCanvas Calendar
For an overview of the Calendar tool feature and how to set up self-sign up appointment blocks, watch the following video tutorial, “CarmenCanvas Calendar Overview”, or read through the step-by-step instructions provided in the dropdown directly below the video.
CarmenCanvas Calendar Overview (4 minutes, 33 seconds)
An easy way to set up virtual office hours is in CarmenCanvas.
The first thing you want to do is navigate to the Calendar, which is the calendar icon on the left-hand side.
- Once you’re in the Calendar, check the Calendars list (generally on the far-right of the screen) and make sure that only the course where you would like to offer appointment times is checked.
- Next, click the plus sign near the top-right of screen (next to the Week, Month, and/or Agenda view options) and select the Appointment Group tab.
- Give your new Appointment Group a title by typing it into the Name input field.
- Then, list the dates and time ranges when you would like for appointments to be available (ex. Date = 2024-11-13 Time Range = 10:30am – 12:00pm). Note: If you need to include multiple time ranges for a single date, but those ranges are not consecutive, you will need to create separate date/time range lines for consecutive block of time.
- Next, update the time slot field that reads “Divide into equal slots of…” to include the length of your meeting in minutes.
- Then, click the Go button. This will automatically create the different appointment meeting time slots.
- You will most likely want to limit each time slot to a certain number of users. Under “Options”, select the box next to “Limit each time slot to…users” and input the number of users allowed to schedule for that time slot.
- Next, if you would only like for participants to sign up only for a specified number of time slots so that they don’t take up unnecessary appointment times that might limit opportunities for others, check the “Limit participants to attend… appointment(s) box and input the number of appointments you would like to limit them to.
- If you happen to have groups within your course, you can also have students sign up within those groups so that the whole group can attend an appointment. To do that, click the Select Calendars button and make sure that you select the appropriate course calendar. Then, check the box next to “Have students gin up in groups“. You can choose what groups you have set up in your course here.
- Lastly, you will want to put in the location of the meeting. If the meeting will be virtual, on Zoom for example, you might type something like “Zoom (see details section for link).
- Then, in the Details section paste the Zoom link that will be used for the meeting
- Finally, click the Publish button at the bottom of the pop up window. Your appointment times will now populate in the calendar view.
How to Sign Up for Carmen Course Appointments (1 minute, 26 seconds)
For step-by-step instructions on how to sign up for an appointment time made available in a Carmen course, watch the following video tutorial or read through the step-by-step instructions provided in the dropdown directly below the video tutorial.
If a course instructor has created individual or group appointment sign-up blocks within your Carmen course, you can sign up or reschedule these appointments directly from your Carmen. To do so:
- From within your Carmen course, select View Course Calendar from the right-hand menu or select the Calendar Navigation icon from the leftmost Carmen navigation menu.
- With your Carmen calendar open, make sure that the specific course for which you would like to schedule an appointment is selected under the Calendar’s drop-down list.
- Next, under the Appointments option, click the Find Appointment button and select the appropriate course name from the drop-down menu.
- Then, click Submit to view all available appointment times in your calendar window.
- To schedule a specific appointment time, click on the time block from the calendar that you would like to book, then click the Reserve link that appears at the bottom of the pop-up window.
- If you need to cancel and reschedule an appointment in Carmen, again with your Carmen calendar open, locate your existing appointment on the calendar and click it.
- Then click the Un-reserve link at the bottom of the pop-up window and delete the existing event.
- Finally, to reschedule your appointment for a new time, if it is not already selected, click the Find Appointment button and choose the correct course to reveal all available time slots.
- Click the time slot you wish to schedule and click the Reserve link at the bottom of the pop-up window to schedule your new time slot.
