2. Set up a new course¶

In this tutorial, we will use the CLT command line interface to set up a new course: “CLT101 – Introduction to Command Line Teaching.”

2.1. Preparation¶

We will need an access token to make API calls to Canvas. Follow the Canvas instructions to generate an access token. We will use the token shortly.

Next, determine the API URL for your institution. The URL should end with the path /api/v1. Be prepared to copy this URL.

Finally, change into a directory to hold your courses.

2.2. Create a new course¶

We are now ready to set up a new course. We can access the CLT toolkit with the command clt, followed by the name of a “tool.” To create a new course, we use the newcourse tool followed by the name of a directory. For this tutorial, we will set up our new course in a directory named CLT101. Type the following command and press enter:

clt newcourse CLT101

You will now be asked a series of questions:

> Enter API token: Copy the access token that you generated on Canvas, paste it here, and press enter.
> Enter API URL:: Copy the API URL for your institution, paste it here, and press enter.
> Enter course unique identifier:: Open your course on Canvas. The URL will end with the path /courses/<UID>. Find the identifier after courses (in place of <UID>), copy it, paste it here, and press enter.
> Enter quiz unlock time:: The newcourse tool will set up a default time to unlock each module quiz. Enter the default unlock time in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), in the format HH:MM:SS. For example, let’s say that we want our quizzes to unlock at 10:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). PDT is seven hours behind UTC, so type 17:00:00 and press enter.
> Enter quiz deadline:: The newcourse tool will set up a default deadline for each module quiz. Let’s say that we want students to complete the quizzes by 11:00:00 AM PDT, one hour after quizzes unlock. Type 18:00:00 and press enter.
> Enter quiz lock time:: Students will not be able to access quizzes after the lock time. Let’s give students an extra 30 minutes to submit a late quiz. Type 18:30:00 and press enter.

The newcourse tool will now create a new directory, CLT101, containing several sub-directories and configuration files.

2.3. File structure¶

Let’s explore the files and directories set up with the newcourse tool:

CLT101/
    _conf/
        quiz-desc.md
        settings.yaml
        token
    modules/

The _conf directory contains our course configuration files. We will edit a few of them to finalize our course set up.

The modules directory will hold our course modules. We will set up a new module in the next tutorial.

2.4. Default quiz description¶

We can edit CLT101/_conf/quiz-desc.md to prepare a default quiz description. We will format the quiz description following the CommonMark Markdown specification. (Refer to the Markdown reference for additional details about the Markdown parser used by the CLT toolkit.) Open quiz-desc.md, delete any text, and add the following:

## Overview

This is an open-book quiz:

- You **may** refer to course materials and notes.
- You **may not** ask classmates for help.

## Deadline

Submit your quiz by 11:00 AM.

Notice that we have used a level-two heading for our first heading: ## Overview. Level-one <h1> tags are reserved for webpage titles, so we will use level-two headings for the top-level headings in the body of our content.

Save and close quiz-desc.md. CLT tools will use the above description for each quiz, unless we provide an alternative description. Refer to the guide to quizzes for details about quiz customization.

2.5. Token¶

Your Canvas access token was written to CLT101/_conf/token. If your access token changes, you can replace the token in this file.

Danger

Do not make the access token public. Do not use Command Line Teaching on a shared computer where others can access your token file. If you use Git for version control for your course, add token to your .gitignore file.

2.6. Next steps¶

Now that we know how to set up a course with the newcourse tool, we can move on to the next tutorial. For additional details about how to customize your course, refer to the guide to course settings.