Run a course for your university

A course is a class where students work in teams. Each team gets its own startup page and its own workspace. A course is private: only its people see it and its teams.

Who does what

Role	What they can do
University admin	The owners and admins of the university's organization. Everything a professor can, in every course.
Professor	Everything: course settings, staff and mentors, students, teams, taking a team out of the course, course tasks and files, hand-ins.
TA	Invite and remove students, make and approve teams, move students, assign mentors, add course tasks and files, remind teams and reopen hand-ins. Not the settings, the staff or taking a team out.
Mentor	Sees the teams they mentor and their hand-ins, and offers office hours. See Mentor a team in a course.
Student	Starts a team or is placed in one, and hands in with it. See Take part in a course.

Create a course

A course draws its students from a school community your organization made (a community of the School or university type). If there is none yet, the form says so and offers Create a school community. See Start a community.

1. Switch to your university's organization and open Programs, then choose New course at the top. Or, in the workspace switcher, choose Create, then Course. Only the organization's owners and admins see it.
2. Type the course's Name. Starts and Ends are optional.
3. Under Students come from, pick the school community.
4. Under Professors (optional) and TAs (optional), add their email addresses, one per line. They don't need to be members of your organization.
5. Under When students make their own team, pick It joins the course at once or It waits for a professor or TA to approve.
6. Choose Create course.

The course opens on its Home. On Programs it shows with a Course tag and its number of Teams, and Open switches to it. In the workspace menu, courses are under Programs, with your role next to them.

To change the course later, switch to it and choose Course settings at the top of the sidebar. You can change the Course name, Description, Start date, End date and whether teams students make need approval. Choose Save changes. Only professors and university admins see this.

Invite students and staff

Open People in the course's menu (or the People gear at the top of the sidebar). Professors, TAs and university admins see it. Filter with All, Students, No team, Mentors and Staff, or search by name or email.

1. Choose Invite people.
2. Under Invite by email, pick who they join as: Students, Mentors, Professors or TAs. TAs invite students only.
3. Paste the addresses under Email addresses, one per line or separated by commas. Personal emails work. You can send up to 200 at a time.
4. Choose Send invitation (with several addresses, the button counts them).

People who already have an account join right away and get an email. Everyone else gets an email with a link that works for 7 days. Everyone you invite also joins the school community. An invite as professor or TA works only for the address it was sent to.

Invited so far lists the email invites as Joined, Waiting or Expired. Send again sends a fresh link, and Revoke cancels one.

Share the course link

One link for the whole class, instead of collecting emails.

1. In Invite people, turn on Course link.
2. Choose Copy and share it with the class.

Anyone with the link joins the course and its school community. Turn the link off when the class is full. Reset link makes a new link: the old one stops working, and everyone who joined stays. Turning the link off and on again also makes a new one.

Remove someone

Open the menu on a person's row and choose Remove from course, or tick several students and choose Remove from course in the bar. They stay in the school community. Someone on a team of the course must be taken out of the team first. A course keeps at least one professor.

Someone you remove can join again with the course link while it is on. To keep them out, reset the link.

Form teams

Open Teams. Professors, TAs and university admins see the team board: No team yet first, then the teams waiting for approval, then the teams in the course.

Make a team

1. Choose New team.
2. Type a Team name and, if you like, One line about what they are building.
3. Pick the Lead. The lead is the team's owner; the others are admins.
4. Under Members, pick students who have no team yet.
5. Choose Make team.

The team is in the course at once, and its students get a notification. From People you can also tick students and choose New team with these, or Put in team to add them to a team that exists. A student without a team has Put in team... in their row's menu too.

Move students

On a computer, drag a student onto a team, or onto No team yet to take them out of their team. Or use the menu beside a student: Move to another team, or Take out of the team. On a phone, use the menu.

A student is in one team per course, so moving them takes them out of their old team. A team's lead stays with it: you can't move them or take them out.

Approve teams students make

When teams need approval, a team students start shows Made by students, waiting. Choose Approve to let it into the course, or Decline. A declined team does not join the course and stays a startup page for its students. The course's Home shows the same buttons under Waiting for you.

Assign mentors

On a team, choose Assign a mentor (or the names of its mentors), tick the mentors, then choose Save mentors. A team can have several mentors, and a mentor several teams. Invite mentors on People first.

Take a team out of the course

In a team's menu, choose Take out of the course. Only professors and university admins can. The team leaves the course and stays a startup page for its students. Open page in the same menu opens the team's page.

Team pages stay inside the university

A team's page can be opened only inside the university: by members of the school community, the course's people and the team. Its Links, CRM, Fundraising and Investors open once the StartupCorners team approves its request to go public. See Ask to make your student startup public.

Course staff are never members of a team, so they don't see its tasks, files or chats. They see what the team hands in.

Set course tasks and follow hand-ins

1. In the course, open Tasks and choose New task.
2. Give it a Title and a Due date, then choose Create Task.

Every team in the course (once approved) sees the task in its own Tasks, with the course's name on it. Teams can't change it: they hand it in from the task and can comment. Comments on a course task are seen by everyone in the course. See Create and assign a task.

Files you add to the course's Files show on the students' course Home, under Course files.

The Hand-ins page

Open Hand-ins. The grid has a row per team and a column per course task. Each cell says Handed in with its day, Late, Missing, Draft or Not yet. Tasks due after the next one are greyed. You see that a team has a draft, but its files and note only once it is handed in.

Choose a task (its column, or its name above the grid) to see that task team by team: who handed it in and when, the files and the note.

• Remind sends a notification to the members of a team that has not handed in. The button at the top reminds every such team at once. A team reminded of that task in the last hour is left out.
• Reopen gives a handed-in hand-in back to the team as a draft, so they can change it and hand it in again. The team gets a notification. Handed in again after the due date, it shows as late.
• Message team opens a chat with the team's lead. Team page opens its page.

Professors, TAs and university admins remind and reopen.

Offer office hours

Professors, TAs and mentors can offer office hours. Open Office hours in the course's menu.

1. Under Offer office hours, pick an Event type. It must be switched on and public or link only. If you have none, choose Make an event type.
2. Add a Note if you like, for example when you are free.
3. Choose Offer office hours.

Students book you at the times in your availability, and the bookings show in the course's Calendar. Change your offer with Save, or end it with Stop offering. If bookings are off in your Schedule settings, the card says so. See Set the hours people can book.

The course's channels

Every course has chat channels in the sidebar, under Channels: announcements, general and introductions. Everyone in the course is in them: its students, mentors, professors, TAs and the university's admins. People who join the course are added, and people you remove are taken out.

• Only professors, TAs and university admins post in announcements. Students react and reply in a thread.
• Professors, TAs and university admins add a channel with the plus next to Channels, and rename, move or delete one from its menu. general stays.
• A new student's arrival is posted in introductions.

Discussions

Discussions in the course's menu is the course's board for announcements and questions. Everyone in the course reads and posts. Professors, TAs and the university's owners and admins can pin, lock or delete posts. See Start a discussion in your community.

The course Home

Where to start lists five first steps until they are done: Fill in the course page (or Set the course dates for a course without a page), Share the course page, Post a welcome in #announcements, Add the first course task and Set your office hours. Each one ticks itself once it is done; sharing ticks once you copy the address here.

Home shows the course's week and a card per team, with its members, its mentors and a mark per course task (handed in, late, missing or not due yet).

• Your course counts the students, the teams and the students with no team yet, shows how far into its dates the course is and who joined recently. Manage opens Course settings.
• Share your course page has the address with Copy, Show QR code to put on a slide in class, and Invite by email. When the course link is off, choose Turn on the course link.
• Waiting for you lists the teams to approve and the teams with no mentor (Assign).
• No team yet lists the students without a team, with Place in teams.
• Next due shows how many teams handed in the next course task.
• New team makes a team, and All teams opens Teams.
• Latest in channels shows the newest messages, with Open #general.

A course page of its own

When a school community becomes its course (the StartupCorners team does this on request), the community's address is the course's page, for example startupcorners.com/c/your-school. It shows the course, its dates, its professors and everything you wrote for the community. Visitors choose Join the course while the course link is on; with the link off, the page says Invite only. The community's old join link and chat links open the course, its channels and their messages become the course's, and the workspace menu lists only the course.

At the top of the sidebar, Edit page opens Course page: the tagline, description, topics, welcome message, rules and page content. The course's name and dates stay in Course settings (the gear next to it).