# Setting Up Course Offerings in Art Center Canvas We have given our users a great deal of flexibility to describe course offerings in Art Center Canvas. To maximize this flexibility, it is important to carefully consider some basic concepts used in the Art Center Canvas scheme for defining course offerings. This article provides a broad overview of the setup process. --- ## Preliminary Setup Before building your course "inventory," there are a few things to set up in Art Center Canvas: - **Designate your** [[Instructors]] - **Set up your class** [[Semester|Semester]] - **Ensure the** [[General Ledger Accounts]] **account codes to be used are entered into Art Center Canvas** These setup tasks can be completed at any point, but handling them upfront will save you from switching between screens in different parts of the program later on. --- ## Considerations for Course Setup A good reference point for deciding how to set up courses is determining the level of detail you want in course registration reports. Below are some basic course attributes to consider for reporting: - **[[Medium]]** - **Experience Level** (Beginner, Advanced, Intermediate, All) - **Course Type** (Class, Workshop, Studio, etc.) ### Medium Consider the medium carefully. Broad categories like painting, ceramics, drawing, or photography may suffice, or you may prefer a more fine-grained approach. For instance, instead of "painting," you could specify watercolor, oil, acrylic, casein, or pastel. Similarly, for "ceramics," you might differentiate between hand-building and wheel-throwing. Making these decisions early is critical to creating a meaningful course catalog. #### Note on Medium for Children's Classes Children's classes often don't focus on a single medium. Instead, they are defined by age group, with various media explored during the course term. In such cases, organizations often define a "medium" as an age range (e.g., 2 to 4 years old, fourth and fifth grade, teens). ### Experience Level and Course Type While similar considerations apply to experience level and course type, these lists tend to be shorter. To maintain consistency, Art Center Canvas makes it more challenging to change these definitions, whereas the list of course media can be altered at any time via the user interface. Our goal is to help you create concise lists that meet your current and future needs without burdening you with overly extensive or quickly outdated options. --- ## Programs The basic building block of a scheduled course is the **[[Core Program|Programs]]**. A Program contains properties shared by multiple scheduled courses. For detailed instructions, refer to the [[Core Program|separate article]] on setting up a Program. Here are the key properties: - Medium - Experience Level - Type - Departments/Categories (user-defined) - Age Range - Class Size (modifiable in the class schedule) ### Example Consider an adult beginner painting course. You would define the basic attributes for this course in the Program setup. This allows you to schedule the program repeatedly without re-entering the core attributes each time, while still customizing elements like the course title, commission amount, instructor, dates, and times. Reducing repetitive entry is a primary reason for separating the Program definition from its schedule. --- ## Scheduling a Program When scheduling a Program, you will add the following attributes (among others): - **Title** (default from Program setup) - **Description** (default from Program setup) - **Course Code** - **Instructor Assignment** - **Semester Assignment** - **Tuition and Fees** - **General Ledger Accounting Codes** - **Dates and Class Times** Details on scheduling a program are covered in [[Class Activity Scheduling]].