Is it possible to disable inbox functionality to ensure complete confidentiality/privacy?

[MatthewBelsky]

Hello,

I work at a university disability resources department and I want to explore using Canvas as a primary or supplemental tool for campus communication with students. We currently use email blasts, but we suspect students check and use Canvas more than email. This idea came after attending an annual conference and seeing another college disability department use Canvas. We also feel this could be a great way to provide educational information to students about disability.

I have been going back and forth with our campus IT department. I understand that we can hide the "people" tab by either making the course open and open to auto-enrollment or hiding the People tab in navigation. Several other offices on campus do this in order to deliver non-course information to students.

HOWEVER ... campus IT alerted us that even if you do the above, you can still access other student's information through the Inbox tab. I figured out how to do this yesterday and confirmed that this is the case.

My question is — is there some way to disable inbox functionality for our course? Given that we work with confidential health information, we can't use Canvas unless it is impossible for students to know the other students in the "course"

OR ... is there some other workaround to make it impossible for students to see other student info in Canvas? 

Note that we work with over 5,000 students, so whatever solution is suggested must be very scalable.

Thank you!

-Matt

[Chris_Hofer]

@MatthewBelsky ...

I realize that this Feature Idea has been archived, but it might have some helpful information in it for you with regards to disabling the Inbox.  IMHO, this would be a larger discussion you'd want to have with your school's Canvas admin...because it may affect everyone who uses Canvas at your school....and not just users in your particular course.

Make the Inbox an optional feature (faculty already have emails!)

I know this isn't a direct answer to your question, but I wanted to provide you with this link in case any of the replies in it would be useful to you.

[MatthewBelsky]

Hello, thanks for the response.

So are you saying that it is theoretically possible to give Canvas courses the option to disable the Inbox for our theoretical "course"? I am somewhat confused about what my next steps would be here.

Second ... are you saying that this is the only way to disable the Inbox, through the process in the link that you sent?

Third, do you have any other ideas or suggestions for how I can proceed?

Thanks!

-Matt

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@MatthewBelsky ...

There's nothing that I am aware of that you can do on an individual basis to disable access to the Inbox.  I'd highly recommend that you reach out to your school's Canvas administrator to have this discussion.  Your Canvas admin may end up having a discussion with their assigned Customer Success Team at Instructure to see what options are available.  The "Inbox" in Canvas button itself is not course specific (because it lives on the global navigation menu) ... even though you can select courses in the Inbox that you are enrolled in.  Again, disabling this for just a select group of people may disable it for all users, but I'm not sure on that.  This is where talking with folks at your school will be the most helpful.  Good luck!