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Canvas: Creating a Sandbox Course

A Sandbox Course is used to develop course materials that will be used for academic purposes. You can create as many Sandbox Course shells as needed in order to prepare for your term.

A Sandbox Course is used to develop course materials that will be used for academic purposes. As an instructor, you can create as many Sandbox Course shells as needed in order to prepare for your term. It is highly recommended that new courses are designed in a Sandbox Course shell and copied to the live, SIS course once the term’s course shells are created. Please use this Canvas Guide for instructions on how to copy a Canvas course into a new course shell

If you need an empty course shell for a non-academic course, such as employee training, please email techdesk@uwstout.edu and request an empty course shell. If you have any questions please email techdesk@ uwstout.edu.

The following instructions are for creating Sandbox Course shells: 

  1. Login to Canvas through the Common Logins page or by going to Canvas.uwstout.eduFor login purposes, you will be asked for your Stout Username and Password. As an instructor and/or Teaching Assistant, you will also be prompted to 2-factor.

    Stout Common Logins screen

  2. Choose the Help button in your Global Navigation bar (bottom left of your browser window). 
  3. Choose the Create a Sandbox Course link from the help fly out menu.

    Create a Sandbox course option under help.


  4. Fill out the form using the naming conventions below (we use this to help make it easy to find your course if you have a problem) 
    1. Course Name: your course name + (SB) [Please note: SB stands for SandboxCourse]. Example: European Art (SB) 
    2. Course Code: SB_DEPT_COURSE NUMBER_FACULTY LAST NAME Example: SB_ART_100_JONES
    3. Department:  Choose your department. If your department is not listed, please choose one within your college.

      Sandbox Course Creator Tool


  5.  Select Create Course. Once your course is created, it will show up on either your Dashboard and/or can be found under the Courses tab by clicking on All Courses