Setup Details
- Create your own account (1 minute) https://app.tophat.com/register/teacher/
- Schedule and receive an one-on-one training session (1 hour) from the TopHat Team by emailing DU’s Account Director Forrest Kutscher, forrest@tophat.com
- Alternatively, view the Professor Orientation videos for self-paced learning
- Add students to your TopHat course- options include
- Send a list of student emails to forrest@tophat.com with the name of your TopHat course and Canvas Course
- Allow students to sign up for an account, and join the TopHat course using the join code
- Connect your Canvas account to a TopHat course and invite the students from the Canvas roster
Subscriptions
Top Hat is available to all DU faculty at no cost. Students purchase subscriptions to use Top Hat in an unlimited number of courses at $24 for 4 months, $36 for 12 months, $72 for the student’s career. Students can purchase subscriptions online or at the DU bookstore.
Training and Support
All faculty planning on using Top Hat are provided with a 1 on 1 training session from TopHat’s team. The session will focus on course set up and ensuring you are comfortable using the platform.
After training, you will be connected with a dedicated support person who can be reached by phone and email for as long as you use Top Hat. Ongoing support extends to your students.
Integrating to Canvas
Top Hat’s advanced Canvas integration allows professors to sync grading and class roster information between the two systems.
Authenticating with Canvas
The first step in syncing your Top Hat course with your Canvas course is to ensure you have 1) created a Top Hat account and course(s) (Professor: Creating Your Account and Courses), and 2) published (made public/available) your Canvas course(s). If you have co-instructors or teaching assistants for this course we strongly encourage you to designate one instructor as the person who will facilitate the authentication and manage the syncing of grades throughout the semester.
From your course page, click on the gear icon in the upper right hand corner and select Course Settings. Select LMS Integration & Sync from the left menu and click on the blue Enable LMS sync button.
When your Canvas course roster has been imported into Top Hat you will be provided with the following message and clicking the blue Go to Student Manager button will take you to your Top Hat course’s Student Manager where you can invite your students to join your Top Hat course!
As revised rosters become available to you or once the add/drop period is over, simply re-sync your Top Hat course with your Canvas course by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right hand corner and select Course Settings. Select LMS Integration & Sync from the left menu and click on the blue Run LMS sync button.
Syncing Grades
Once your Top Hat and Canvas courses are successfully synced you can easily transfer student grade data from the Top Hat gradebook to your Canvas grade center. The syncing of the two platforms is a deliberate action and does not occur automatically. Most professors choose to sync regularly to ensure the students’ grade in Canvas is up to date with the inclusion of their Top Hat components.
You can initiate the syncing process by either clicking on the LMS Sync button in the upper right hand corner of your course gradebook, or accessing your course settings by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right hand corner of your course content page, and then select LMS Integration & Sync from the left menu.
OR
The first sync configuration option is whether how you want to organize your exported grades.
- Course – All Top Hat content is recorded as one big aggregate grade – All of the content found in Top Hat will be added up and exported into your LMS as a single entry for each student. This is great if you only want Top Hat to account for a set amount of your overall course material.
- All top-level folders – Each top-level folder is recorded as a column – Folders in Top Hat will appear as individual columns and entries in your LMS. Content in your folders will be rounded up to the folder level. This grading structure works well if you organize your content by lecture (eg. “Week 1”, “Section 1”, “Class 1” etc.). Note: Items contained in subfolders are added to the top-level folder’s calculations.
Once synced, accessing your Grades Center in Canvas will show columns titled with the naming convention TH-[Folder Name] where Folder Name reflects your folder titles in Top Hat.
- Specified folders only – Only folders you choose will be recorded as a column – The folders you select in Top Hat will appear as individual columns & entries in your LMS. Content in your folders will be rounded up to the folder level. This grading structure works well if you would like only specific content to be synced with your LMS.
Once you have identified this option as your choice, click Next and select the folders you would like to sync with your Canvas course and then click Save.
Next time you want to sync your grades you can simply click Edit next to the option Update Folder Selections to add additional folders to your sync as you wish.
Once synced, accessing your Grades Center in Canvas will show columns titled with the naming convention TH-[Folder Name] where Folder Name reflects your folder titles in Top Hat.
2) Attendance Options
The second option available to you is whether or not you want to include students’ attendance scores in your sync with Canvas. Upon syncing, this will create a column in your Canvas gradebook with your students’ cumulative attendance grades, either as a percentage or points depending on how you align your settings below.
You can decide whether or not you would like your grades transferred as a percentage or as points.
- Percentage – Grades will be converted into an overall percentage score out of 100% when reported from Top Hat.
- Points – Whatever points you set up in Top Hat will be reported in your LMS.
Click to edit the final option if, upon syncing, you want to remove students from Top Hat that do not match your LMS roster. After clicking edit, choose Remove students from my course who disenroll from the LMS.
Syncing Your Grades
Clicking the blue Run LMS sync button will pass students’ grades from your Top Hat course to your Canvas course. Accessing your Grades Center in Canvas will show columns as per your sync configuration choices.
If you want to disconnect the LMS sync or clear information from either system, you have the ability to do so. Take a look at this article for more information: Professor: Disconnect Learning Management System (LMS).
Support
Should you require further assistance with Top Hat, our Support Team is here to help! You can contact us directly by way of email (support@tophat.com), the Contact Support button on this page, or calling us at 1-888-663-5491.
Material on this page copyright TopHat Monocle 2017 and used with permission.