Ready to create a community Packback? There are two easy methods for creating a new course discussion community on Packback; either creating a community manually or using LTI to automatically generate a community for a course.
How to create a community on Packback by form
1. Log in with a professor account, or sign up for a professor account
You will need a professor account to be able to access the community creation form. If you have used Packback in the past as an instructor for any course, you will simply need to log in. If you are new to Packback, you will need to create a professor account before creating a community.
If you need any help with creating your account or getting proper professor privileges, our support team is happy to help at help@packback.co.
2. Then, fill out details on the "Create a New Community" form
This page can be accessed via your main dashboard when you log in to a professor account, via the large red "Create a New Community" button, or directly by a country-specific link for creating communities in the USA or creating communities in Canada.
After creating a new community, you will see it appear in the "Upcoming Communities" tab of your main profile and you will see a button on the community prompting you to "Finish Setup".
Need more than one community? If you have more than one course which you need to create a community for, simply repeat this process!
In the next article in this guide, we will cover the steps of how to finish setting up a community.
How to add a Packback community to your course via LTI
Note: Adding Packback to a course using LTI requires that your school already has an LTI integration with Packback. If you are not sure if your school has set up an LTI integration, you can contact your campus IT department or reach out to our team at help@packback.co.
1. First, enable Packback in your LMS course
If a school has an LTI integration established with Packback, instructors often will need to add Packback to their course via their LMS settings. Each LMS has a slightly different process for enabling an available LTI tool.
To learn about how to "turn on" Packback in your course navigation in your specific LMS, please reference one of the following article:
2. Then, click the Packback link to "launch" LTI, which generates a new community automatically
By clicking the "Packback Questions" LTI link from your course in your LMS, this automatically triggers a process to create a new community and connect it to your course with appropriate pricing for your school's relationship with Packback. You may see a page telling you that your community is being reviewed by a Packback admin and will be unlocked within 24 hours; this is normal! This process exists to ensure that there are no duplicated communities to ensure that students have a seamless registration experience.
You will be prompted to finish setting up your course community within Packback after launching the community via LTI.
In the next article in this guide, we will cover the steps of how to finish setting up a community.
