[ARCHIVED] Open and Self Registration Worries Me but May Need It

[dwillmore]

Hello all,

I am hoping that you can give me some ideas here, or at least alleviate my fears.

Situation:

• We only add students in our SIS to Canvas
• We use an LDAP system for authentication and only users in our SIS is in the LDAP

• Assessment department wants to go to different high schools to give  English and math assessments using Canvas
• Assessment department will have no advance notice of who the students will be that take the tests until it is time to give the test.
• These students will not be in our SIS  system
• These students will not be in our LDAP system

The only way that I can think of to accommodate this request is to use either open or self-registration.  I don't want to open that hole to the world.  Do any of you great folks have a better idea, or can you give me reasons why I should not worry about open or self-registration?

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this.

[sbastian]

My first thought was - "I wonder if you can restrict/allow something like open registration by sub-category?" I haven't researched this so I don't know.

My second thought was - "Well, it would be an annoying amount of work but it should work." The it being:

• Create a .CSV file to create a boatload (or whatever quantity you need) of "dummy accounts" (e.g. HS1Student1, HS2Student2, etc...)
• Create a .CSV file to enroll said dummy accounts in the HS Testing Course
• Make the passwords all the same and hand them out to the students as they sign in using the dummy account names
• You'd need a way to record which actual student was given each dummy account name at the sites (high schools)

My third thought was: "I hope other people have other/better ideas!"

[dwillmore]

Thank you Susan,

We thought about this, but decided it would not work for us.

[pkreemer · Accepted solution]

David, some dev work here but you may ideally want a one page web app for the assessment staff that:

1. Lets them input student names and,
2. Generates user accounts - displaying account credentials to instructor, and
3. Enrolls those new accounts in the course.

It'd probably work best as an LTI app, added to a course as needed, accessible only by the instructor. Launching it would pass the course info, including SIS ID, which the app could use in enrolling the new student accounts.

I also don't like the idea of enabling self-registration.  I wish there was an option of generating a secret URL for a course that allowed user account creation and enrollment. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that you need to have Self registration enabled for the site, and that adds the "Need a Canvas Account?" link to your Canvas login form, opening things up globally.

[dwillmore]

Paul,

This is the best idea yet, and I think I can handle that code.  I will need to ponder this for a time, but I think it will be worth the work.  @pkreemer ​

[dwillmore]

Forgot to say yes, you understood my dilemma.

[jallen]

Hi David,

One interesting thing is if the assessment department could collect student data through the "quiz." If you make a course public (in the course settings) and create a practice quiz of ungraded survey anyone in the public can take the quiz. Canvas captures the data the same way it would if they were enrolled. The only caveat is that the assessment department would have to have some demographic questions at the beginning of they want to know the names of the students taking the quiz.

Hope that helps or like Susan said that other people have some good ideas!

[dwillmore]

Jennifer,

That is a great idea, but can you give quizzes in the manner?  How would 30 anonymous students take the same quiz at a time....assuming demographic information is asked in the quiz.

[jallen]

In theory this would work the same way you gave a quiz in class except you would have to provide the students the URL. Also, from my understanding any number of students should be able to take the quiz at one time.

[dwillmore]

Thanks Jennifer,

I will give this a go as well. It may be the simplest solution with the least amount of work for all involved.

[jallen]

Good Luck!