Wiki Page, Canvas Admin Overview: [MODULE 3] Establishing Roles and Permissions

Wiki Page
2014-04-03T08:37:01-06:00

Establishing Roles and Permissions

Account admins have the power to create roles and set their permissions for a variety of reasons. These roles can be account-level roles or course level roles. This section provides greater insights into roles and permissions in Canvas.

What Kinds of Roles Can We Create?

Great question! There are two types of roles --- account level roles and course level roles.

Account level roles are those that allow a user to have administrative privileges within Canvas. These can either be set at the root or sub-account levels or both. Click to view the most commonly used account-level roles.

Course level roles are those that allow a user to have a specific function with a course. By default, Canvas already comes with teacher, TA, student, observer, and designer roles already created.

View this video with captions.

What are Permissions?

Permissions are the privileges given to each role. As an account-admin, all permissions have been enabled. You have all the power within your Canvas system.

As you create new roles, you can vary these permissions. For instance, you may want to create a 'support-type' role with the ability to access/edit courses, but without the ability to 'masquerade' as another user. Or, you may want to create an 'Analysis' role to have the ability to set outcomes and pull reports, but only for a specific department (sub-account).

All roles and permissions created at the root-account level will trickle down into the sub-accounts. However, sub-account admin roles with specific permissions can also be created. You also have the ability to lock a permission so it cannot be changed at the sub-account level.

You can probably spend hours fine-tuning and setting up roles and permissions to meet the needs of your organization.

The following tutorials relate to roles and permissions:

What are the differences between course-level roles and account-level roles?

What do the different icons on the permissions page mean?

How do I create course-level roles?

How do I set permissions for course-level roles?

How do I create account-level roles?

How do I set permissions for an account-level admin?

How do I set permissions for a sub-account-level admin?

What are the most commonly used account-level roles?