[ARCHIVED] Kicking someone out of a canvas course

[millerjm]

How can I kick someone out of a canvas course without SIS Imports overriding it? 

If I conclude or make inactive, the student will just get added back in the next time SIS runs. 

Does anyone have a way to do this?

Thanks!

[canvas_admin · Accepted solution]

Our system is set up so that when a student drops a course, the entry in the column in the sis file gets changed from "active" to "deleted"   Perhaps there is some tweak or some way to get your system to go the same?

[millerjm · Accepted solution]

We do this as well with our SIS import file, but let's say a student is enrolled in a class but due to conduct issues needs to be immediately removed from the course, we can do that, but then the next time the SIS process runs, it will put the student back in.  The student isn't officially withdrawn from the course yet because there is a judicial review process, so our SIS wouldn't even know about it, but we need a way to exclude this user and have it stick until the process is finalized.  Each time the SIS extract runs, the student is made active again in the class because as far as the SIS is concerned, the student is registered. 

[millerjm · Accepted solution]

We are not running in Batch mode. 

[mjohnson3]

We typically make the change through our Registrar's office.  However, if you have the ability to run a manual sis upload via csv, you could set it up to remove that 1 person and when you process the sis upload manually, Check the boxes for Override UI changes and Process as UI change.  I haven't tested this, but it may work. 

Mary

[millerjm]

We do all of this via automated API csv upload.  No checkboxes-it always overrides UI changes!  110k enrollments a term and it runs by itself every 4 hours So we can't do anything manually.

[canvas_admin · Accepted solution]

Our system is set up so that when a student drops a course, the entry in the column in the sis file gets changed from "active" to "deleted"   Perhaps there is some tweak or some way to get your system to go the same?

[millerjm · Accepted solution]

We do this as well with our SIS import file, but let's say a student is enrolled in a class but due to conduct issues needs to be immediately removed from the course, we can do that, but then the next time the SIS process runs, it will put the student back in.  The student isn't officially withdrawn from the course yet because there is a judicial review process, so our SIS wouldn't even know about it, but we need a way to exclude this user and have it stick until the process is finalized.  Each time the SIS extract runs, the student is made active again in the class because as far as the SIS is concerned, the student is registered. 

[jpgorrono]

If you have the ability to see and edit sis information in the UI, you could remove the 'sis id' under the user's panel in People. Select 'More user details...' and edit "login Information"

[millerjm]

Jon, we tried that and then the next time the SIS import ran, it made a brand new user with that SIS ID and added the student back to the class.  So then she had 2 accounts!

And if the student is being kicked out of one class for cheating but needs to stay in another class, removing the authentication would be a barrier for the class that the student needs to stay in.

[jpgorrono]

I see. You must be using batchmode then as Anthony Bunag says below.

[jpgorrono]

Oh, what you see doesn't necessarily imply batchmode, it's adding the user again (as you say below) *because* it can't find them by sis_id

yeah, ic now.

Have you tried selecting 'Conclude this enrollment' and having imports use override_sis_stickiness=false ?

I don't know yet if the status field is one of those fields that stickiness can apply to....

[jpgorrono]

nevermind... is see you've considered that elsewhere here. And thanks to the link you provided I can see status is not a sticky field

[RobDitto]

Great suggestion, but unfortunately per  @tfullwood ​'s terrific reference there are no sticky enrollments:

• Canvas Sticky Fields (UI Override)

[millerjm]

 @RobDitto , thanks for posting that! 

That document is super helpful as a reference but makes me frustrated that there isn't any way to workaround this. 

 @tfullwood ​ - where was this documentation when I was implementing????  Having these diagrams makes a former technical writer very happy!  THANK YOU for this documentation.

[abunag]

Stab in the dark here, but it sounds like you're running in Batch mode - meaning the system overwrites everything every time you feed it SIS data.  If you instead don't run in batch mode, it shouldn't try to re-add the user once you manually remove them.

[millerjm · Accepted solution]

We are not running in Batch mode. 

[James]

 @millerjm ​,

Two thoughts - but I've got to be somewhere soon, so they won't be fully developed.

Perhaps you've got override_sis_stickiness turned on in your SIS imports through the API.

SIS Imports - Canvas LMS REST API Documentation

It's possible that it's one of the other stickiness parameters, but when I ran it one time with that, it overwrote all the changes that had been made through the UI (which was a bad thing). No, we just go with the defaults that changes made through the UI override those made through the SIS imports and we don't give faculty the ability to mange enrollment in their courses.

Another possibility is that the SIS is sending a delete flag, which is being honored by Canvas and removing them. When I wanted to add a student to a course and our SIS wanted to remove them, what we do is move them into the section that was created by Canvas (that holds the instructor and has the same name as the course itself) and then our SIS import doesn't touch them because they are gone from that section.

Your issue may not be helped by that because you want the reverse. If the override stickiness doesn't fix it, then you may need to fix your SIS or your policies regarding who is eligible to be in a class. Maybe you could put them into another section (create one) that has already ended (or alternatively hasn't started) and then they couldn't get in.

[millerjm]

Thanks, James, for your thorough response.  I will test the stickiness flag but the problem is that the sis has active but I need to have it stuck at delete.  I can keep someone in the class using the workaround you described-making another section manually-but deleting a user and having hem stay deleted seems to be a problem I can't find a workaround for. so far.

[James · Accepted solution]

I saw that someone posted a document with the Stickiness settings while I was typing the response - that was helpful, but not for what you want to do. Your SIS keeps on putting them back into the section and there needs to be some way to keep it from doing that.

We consider our SIS to be authoritative. There are times it messes up, especially when it comes to dropping people who signed up for the payment plan and it does it at the end of the first week of classes, late in the day, so that students can't get it taken care of and are dropped from Canvas over that first weekend. Bad all around, but that's not the issue you're facing.

Without knowing the use case, I'd say that something needs to change in the SIS. You probably can't control that, but if the student isn't supposed to be in the Canvas course, then they probably shouldn't be in the course. There are some cases I can think of like those who are not supposed to use computers as part of their sentence, but then they shouldn't have any access to Canvas, not just a particular course.

In no particular order, here are some things that might trigger a workable solution.

• Drop them from the SIS. If it's a case where there is some legal reason why they cannot be in the course (harassment of another student, injunction, etc.) then the instructor should remove them from the course, which would drop them in the SIS, and keep them out of the course.
• Lock them out of the system completely. We have done this with some students who we needed to get in touch with us and didn't respond to any emails, phone calls, etc. We locked their account in Active Directory so that they couldn't log in at all, including Canvas, and then notified all the people they might contact to direct them to the appropriate person. Once they did that, we opened it back up.
• Stop doing full updates and do incremental ones. Then the SIS updates would stop overwriting the UI changes. We don't use Peoplesoft's products, but ours puts a timestamp on all enrollment changes and I use it to look for recent changes when sending the information to Canvas. That allows us to keep the imports small enough that we can update every 20 minutes. We do have to make sure the imports are successful, so I run an overnight full update -- which would recreate your current problem.
• Move them in the SIS into a new section and specify different dates for that section in Canvas. This is probably the most reasonable solution not knowing the justification for dropping them from Canvas but not the course. You could make the argument that they need to be in a special non-Canvas section. This would also be the case in a legal situation, then you could mark them as only being able to see other students in their own section (which doesn't work for discussions) so you might need to make a completely separate course.
• Create a new status in the SIS (this probably won't fly): Registered, Withdrawn, Hold (or Pending or Locked) and then make that Hold get transferred across as a Completed or Inactive.
• Add some other flag to the SIS. Make it kind of like an accommodation request, although I suspect that's not the real reason they need deleted from the Canvas course. This essentially becomes an override system.
• Write special code. My opinion of our SIS fails to register on the scale. Accordingly, I custom wrote the system that populates our imports. Our SIS doesn't actually have any clue which courses use Canvas, it's maintained on a separate system. We have to check that students have completed the mandatory Canvas orientation before they get into their courses, but they need to get into the orientation and student clubs without it. I put the students who haven't completed the orientation into a special "Need student orientation" section inside each course that starts the last day of the course and ends the next day. That way they can see the course but can't get into it and the instructor can see that they are in it but need to complete the orientation. Our SIS knows nothing of that special section either. From what you wrote to Kelley, it sounds like your programming skills may not afford you that opportunity -- and honestly, if our SIS would have handled it, it would have been a lot easier.

[kmeeusen]

Joni:

I am not as much of a techie as  @James  is (wish he worked for me), but he is right about it being related to how your enrollments are populated. We are part of a state system, and a state tech set up our integration with the student information system, and when we inactivate a student they stay inactivated even though our integration runs every hour throughout the term. I would talk to whomever is in charge of your integration to see if you can get this changed.

KLM

[millerjm]

Well, "whomever is in charge of our integration" is me.  I set it up with the help of our IC as far as the settings go.  i worked on mapping the fields and the formatting so a peoplesoft analyst could do the programming for the data extract and then I had someone else who helped with the ruby script for the data import but the IC told us what API calls to make etc. 

so unfortunately I am the only one who actually knows the canvas piece, and I just had people who helped me get it implemented...wish I were a more adept programmer and had access to the right systems! 

i I think I will try  @jpgorrono ​'s suggestion with override stickiness -perhaps that is how your state system has the sis imports set up,  @kmeeusen ​?  I will try via manual API upload and if that works have the enrollment automation code changed. 

i will let you know how that goes! 

[kmeeusen]

Joni:

I suspected it might be you from your original posting, but just wanted to let you know that the possibility exist. I wish I also were a programmer so that I could be of more help, but some real adepts like  @James ​ &  @jpgorrono ​ are in here to save the day.

Good luck with this!

KLM

[millerjm]

Thank you everyone for your very thorough responses and help!

 @tfullwood ​ is correct, override_sis_stickiness = false will not work with the enrollment status field. 

The problem was that we don't have a place to do this in the SIS and this would be a rare case but I'm trying to get a procedure in place since it came up last week.

Oh well, I guess the answer is that I can't do this on my end, which means it's up to student services and the computer security depending on what needs done.  Which means I don't have to do anything for Canvas in these cases and it's out of my control!    And as  @James ​ suggested, having the SIS control this or locking them out entirely is the best option so they will have to figure it out on their end if they want them kicked out of their courses. 

Thanks for all of your suggestions!

Joni