[Course Settings] Control Conversations at a Course Level

[julopez]

We would like the ability to enable and disable Conversations/Messages and its features, like "Reply All", at a Course Level.

While these features can be edited at a role level, each course may have different messaging preferences and should be modifiable based off the course, not just the role. 

[ProfessorBeyrer]

Idea: Allow an instructor to hide a course from the list of courses that students can select when composing a message using the Conversations (Inbox) tool

Justification: We have an interest in turning off the ability to use the Conversations (Inbox) tool on a course-by-course basis. This is to the serve the interests of Canvas courses where student confidentiality is important. Hiding the People page does not prohibit a student from using the Inbox link in Global Navigation to compose a new message, select the course, and then see a list of all enrolled students. 

This is not for regular courses but for using Canvas to support student services like Disabled Students Programs and Services. There are others too that want to use Canvas tools for communicating with students, providing access to resources, etc. but where students have a reasonable (and sometimes legal) expectation of privacy. Our students enjoy using Canvas for their classes and our student services providers would like to make use of Canvas tools for their services too

But what about? When enacted, this idea will not prohibit students from using the Conversations tool to contact their instructors because the Ask Your Instructor a Question will still be an option on the Help menu on Global Navigation.

[ProfessorBeyrer]

I did some research and made a demo video of a solution that does not require changing the permissions of the standard Student role. That is to create a second role and for that to remove its permission to send Conversations messages to the entire class. This is a solution that we can implement now at each of our Canvas instances with the cooperation of our awesome sysadmin colleagues:

[yrudoingthis]

I want to echo what May027 said:

"I would like the option to disable the Canvas messaging system at the course level, or at least be able to disable the inbox for a specific course."

Currently, the only way (that I know of) to disable the inbox is at the role level that is tied to "conversations".  I would love to have the ability to manage this at the course level.  Thank you.

[LindsayAdams]

@ProfessorBeyrer I just came up with this same solution -- wish I had come across your post before spending half a day troubleshooting different options! Similar to your situation, we need a way for students with ADA accommodations to receive notes from our paid student scribes (we're a law school), while maintaining absolute anonymity for both the student and the scribe. We created a dedicated Canvas course for each pairing, hid the 'People' link, and plan to use Anonymous Discussions for file sharing.

The Inbox issue popped into my head this morning (luckily before we added any students to the courses!) and I was disappointed to learn Conversations can't be toggled off in Course Settings. Creating a custom role is what I came up with and tested. Seeing your video is great reassurance that what I'm seeing in testing is correct and our custom role will work. So thank you! Since you posted this almost a year ago, have you run into any other ways in which a student's anonymity could be compromised? 

[ProfessorBeyrer]

Hi @LindsayAdams, thank you for your kind words about my post. Doing the hard work to discover a solution to find that someone else followed a similar path is gratifying, and your comment reassures me too.

No, we haven't run into any other ways anonymity can be compromised.