[ARCHIVED] Limiting faculty access to editing course materials?

[yuccabrevifolia]

Hey folks!

I'm trying to address a problem where instructors are making changes to syllabi and assignments in live courses when they should not. At my institution course content is prepopulated into each section prior to the start of the course and should not be modified except for some very basic personalization, however that rule is not being observed.

We have a large number of courses starting every few weeks and need a way to assure that changes aren't made to the syllabus or other boilerplate text that is universal across programs. There simply isn't the manpower to check all of the courses manually before they start.

Is there a way to limit instructor permissions like this? I'm not finding many discussions on limiting faculty ability to edit content. I "think" it could be done using blueprints, but for scheduling reasons we can't implement that approach. Has anyone found themselves in a similar situation and come up with a solution?

I was also thinking that there may be a way to do this using course templates, but I have not been able to find enough information on what one can and cannot do with templated courses to be able to tell. Could it perhaps be done through some custom role? Is there a means of locking specific pages or content blocks at something above the teacher level?

Any ideas/insight would be much appreciated. 

Thanks all in advance!

Lloyd

[jerry_nguyen · Accepted solution]

@yuccabrevifolia 

Our school also pre-populated all learning materials and assignments. There are 2 ways you can prevent trainers from editing content:

1. Using Blueprint to lock contents. Contents of all courses associated with the blueprint course will be locked

More info here:

• https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-enable-a-course-as-a-blueprint-course-as-an-...
• https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Video-Guide/Blueprint-Courses-Overview/ta-p/383201

2. Set Course Level permissions. Permissions will be applied all trainers and courses under the account or sub-account

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-set-permissions-for-a-course-level-role-in-a...

For Syllabus, the only way to prevent editing (for now) is to use a Custom JS or CSS file to hide the Edit button.

[yuccabrevifolia]

Thank you very much @jerry_nguyen !

It is very much appreciated. For our use case we are unable to use blueprints, so that is not an option unfortunately. My understanding is that the new templates feature is similar, so perhaps it has that ability and granularity as well. 

Lloyd

[lettgo583]

Thanks for these ideas, @jerry_nguyen!

I tried the Blueprint option -- checking off every item to keep them from changing anything in the course -- but faculty could still edit the content in the associated course. Not sure what I'm missing on this ... 

By the way, I only need this for an example course ... where I want faculty to be able to see all published and unpublished items, as well as settings of assignments, quiz settings/question content, etc.  So, this is a bit different from your and Lloyd's situation. 

I like the idea of hiding the "Edit" button for an entire course. Anyone know if this is possible? 

Not sure if the permissions are granular enough to set up a role that would handle my situation. 

Linda

[jerry_nguyen]

@lettgo583 

If someone edits a page or an assessment before you lock it from the Blueprint, it will break the link to that item between that associated course and the Blueprint. Once the link is broken, no further sync can be done for that item (from Blueprint) including locking and content changes.

I haven't tried the new granular permissions because we lock everything at our school. However, If you have tried that granular permission and that doesn't work, you can try to implement custom CSS to hide those 3-dot buttons which allow teacher to access the edit function.

[lettgo583]

Just realized that hiding the Edit button means that faculty can't see the settings I want them to see. So, never mind on that.  🙂