Sub Account Admins and "Start a New Course" Permission

[rmarchionda]

I am super new as a Canvas admin coming from another LMS. I have created two "Account Roles" (Building Administrator and Tech Admin) at the District root account. The only way to have them have the Start a new course button appears to have users with these account roles at the District root level. Is there a way to have these users not have District root account admin access, but only have sub-account admin access and keep the "Start a New Course" button?

[Sandie · Accepted solution]

Hi @rmarchionda

Yes, you can give these users account admin access to the sub account level only. We have create different course and account roles for different use. For example, lecturers have teacher admin account role which allow them to search and self enrol into courses in their schools only. For the two account roles that you created, you do not need to give them full admin access to add courses. I will suggest you go through the permissions list and only enable the permissions that they really need. Hope this help.

[FrankieKirk]

Hi @rmarchionda,

Permissions can be edited to allow any role that you determine to have the Start a New Course button appear for users with those roles.  Go to the Manage Courses permission, which is a grouped permission that allows granularity in controlling permissions.  Expand the group to enable or disable granular permissions; check the Courses - add permission for user groups you want to be able to start courses.  

This Canvas Instructor Guide is helpful:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-manage-the-Permissions-page/ta-p/114

[rmarchionda]

Thanks! I appreciate these responses to a Canvas newb. This is what is in the Course Roles  (see attachment). In the Account Roles, I see the Manage Courses>Courses - Add. Do I create a Teacher Account Role and configure permissions including this one? How do I attach teachers to this "Teacher" Account Role?

Some more information ... we are not yet connected and syncing with our SIS, but I have added manually a handful of staff to begin understanding these permissions and roles. Honestly, I have gone through a lot of the manuals, but my mind is still adjusting from our previous environment. I sincerely appreciate the help.

[FrankieKirk]

By default in Canvas, users with the Teacher role (shown in your image) have permission to create courses.  I'm interested to know what happens when you add a user to your account and then add that user to a course with the teacher role.  Does the Start a New Course button not appear on that user's dashboard?  If not, you may want to contact your CSM to ask about Teacher participation in your Canvas instance.

[rmarchionda]

Thanks for the reply! I have this figured out now. Generally, we don't want teachers to create their own courses, but since we are migrating from another LMS, we want this ability for a period of time before we let students and parents in. I found the settings needed in the District settings page at the bottom. 

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @rmarchionda ...

So it sounds like you created two custom "Account Roles" (Building Administrator and Tech Admin) in your "Permissions" page of your Canvas environment (at the root account level).  Then, it sounds like you want to add specific people to each of those roles...but at the sub-account level.  Here is what you would want to do...

1. In your Canvas admin pages, click on the "Sub-Accounts" menu.
2. Click on the name of the sub-account you have created where you want the Building Administrator or the Tech Admin person(s) to be sub-account admins.  (You'll see a breadcrumb trail at the top of your screen letting you know where you are within the sub-account structure of your Canvas environment.)
3. Click on the "Settings" menu on the bottom left-hand side of the screen.  (This is the "Settings" screen for the sub-account...not the "Settings" screen for the main root account.)
4. Click on the "Admins" tab.
5. Click on the "+ Account Admins" button.
6. From the drop-down list, select one of the custom account roles that you created from your "Permissions" page.
7. Enter in the e-mail address(es) of the people you want to assign to this role.  (This assumes that these people already have user accounts in Canvas.  If they do not have user accounts yet in Canvas, you need to do this before assigning them to a sub-account.)
8. Click the "Continue..." button.  (I think here is where you'll be prompted to confirm things.)
9. Repeat this process for the other role and people who need to be assigned to it.

There are similar instructions in this Guide, How do I add an admin to an account? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com), but you are just adding people to sub-accounts rather than to the root-level Canvas account.

And...just a little tidbit from my own experiences...  if you ever make a change to a permission setting for either of those two roles, you may have to then go back to that "Admins" tab for the sub-account, temporarily remove the person, and then re-add them to the sub-account ... in order for the new permission settings to apply to the user.  At least, that's been my experience.  I don't know if it's the same for other Canvas admins at other schools, but I thought I'd share my thoughts on that...for what it's worth.

Hope this all helps a bit!

[rmarchionda]

Yes, thank you very much for the clarification!