Getting Started with the OneNote Class Notebook: A Walkthrough for Educators (2024)

OneNote for Microsoft 365 OneNote 2021 OneNote 2016 More...Less

The OneNote Class Notebook is an app that helps you set up OneNote in your class. This app will create a class notebook, which includes three types of sub-notebooks:

Student Notebooks — private notebooks that are shared between each educator and their individual students. Educators can access these notebooks at any time, but students cannot see other students’ notebooks.
Content Library — a notebook for educators to share course materials with students. Educators can add and edit its materials, but for students, the notebook is read-only.
Collaboration Space — a notebook for the students and educator of the class to share, organize, and collaborate in.

In addition, we have released the Class Notebook Add-in, which is atool thatimproves Class Notebook's efficiencyfor educators. This add-in is freely available for all users of OneNote 2016 for Windows. To learn more, seeClass Notebook add-in for OneNote for Windows.

What you’ll need

AMicrosoft 365 subscription for Education that includes OneDrive for Business. If you're not sure you have this, please contact your IT administrator to verify.
An organizational account for yourself (the educator) with permissions to use the OneNote Class Notebook app to create the class notebooks.
Your students must haveMicrosoft 365 organizational accounts.

Getting started

Launch the OneNote Class Notebook

Sign into Office 365.
Select the App launcher >All apps.
Select Class Notebook.

Create a Class Notebook

Create a Class Notebook in OneNote

Add another educator to your Class Notebook

Add or remove educators in Class Notebook for OneNote

Addstudents to your Class Notebook

Add students to a Class Notebook in OneNote

Managing Class Notebooks

To manage other capabilities for your Class Notebooks, click the Manage notebooks button from the Class Notebook wizard.

This displays a page that shows all Class Notebooks created by you, as well as information for customizing each one.

Options include:

Renaming student sections — To rename any student sections, select thepencil icon, then type the new name of the section. Be sure to select Save after renaming student sections.
Adding student sections — To distribute a new section to all students, select Add section. Be sure to selectSave after adding student sections.
See Also
Download and install or reinstall Microsoft 365 or Office 2021 on a PC or Mac Activate Office - Microsoft Support
Enabling the Teacher-Only section group — The Teacher-Only section group is a private space where only the educator can see what’s inside. To add a Teacher Only section group to your Class Notebook, click Enable Teacher-Only section group. Other educators who have access to your Class Notebook will also have access to the Teacher-Only section group, but students cannot see anything here.
Locking the Collaboration Space — Enabling this option changes the Collaboration Space to read-only and prevents students from editing content.You can toggle the switch from locked to unlocked at any time.
Opening the Class Notebook — SelectOpen to open the Class Notebook.
Sharing a link to the Class Notebook — To send a link to the Class Notebook to your class, select and copy the text in the Link box, and then paste it into an email.

Help your students find their Class Notebook

Find and share Class Notebook URL

Troubleshooting

Troubleshoot Class Notebook

I don’t see the OneNote Class Notebook icon in my app launcher. What’s wrong?

Try the following:

Make sure you have one of the following licenses:
- Office 365 Education for Faculty
- Office 365 A1 Plus PLUS for Faculty
- Microsoft 365 Faculty Individual Sign Up
- Office 365 A1 for Faculty
- Microsoft 365 Plan A2 for Faculty
- Office 365 A3 for Faculty
- Microsoft 365 Plan A4 for Faculty
- SharePoint (Plan 1) for Faculty
- SharePoint (Plan 2) for Faculty
- Office Professional Plus for Faculty
- Office Web Apps (Plan 1) For Faculty
- Office Web Apps (Plan 2) For Faculty
Check that the OneNote Class Notebook app is not disabled in the Admin Portal:
- Open the App launcher , then selectAdmin.
- In the left navigation pane, under Admin, selectSharePoint.
- On the next screen, in the left navigation pane, selectSettings.
- Check that OneNote Class Notebook is set to Show.
If you still don’t see the OneNote Class Notebook icon after following the preceding steps, you can file a support ticket at https://aka.ms/EDUSupport.