Generic Login

[sima_tarokh]

Hello,

As an admin, is there any way to create a generic login credentials, so people outside of my institution can access a specific course on our Canvas instance? Please advise!

Thank you!

[greydon · Accepted solution]

Hello @sima_tarokh 

If you want to give course access to users  that do not attend your institution, the easiest way is to go to the course and add them there directly. Presuming they would be "students" in the course? Go to people + people in the top right corner. Add them by email and give them a role -  it will ask if you want to create a new user since they can't be found. Then, they should receive an email inviting them to the course. They can always use the generic "forgot password" option to create a new one. You can also give  them a password under Admin - People. Similarly, you could create  them there first but it may be easier to add them in bulk to the course by emails separated by commas. Hopefully  this helps! 

[greydon · Accepted solution]

Hello @sima_tarokh 

If you want to give course access to users  that do not attend your institution, the easiest way is to go to the course and add them there directly. Presuming they would be "students" in the course? Go to people + people in the top right corner. Add them by email and give them a role -  it will ask if you want to create a new user since they can't be found. Then, they should receive an email inviting them to the course. They can always use the generic "forgot password" option to create a new one. You can also give  them a password under Admin - People. Similarly, you could create  them there first but it may be easier to add them in bulk to the course by emails separated by commas. Hopefully  this helps! 

[sima_tarokh]

Thank you so much for your response greydon!

I was informed there is only one person and I prefer not to create account for him/her; therefor, I ended up adding a "fake user" to the course and share it's credential with the person.

Thanks again and hope you enjoy the weekend! 

[ProfJ]

What is the process for adding a fake user? Thanks 🙂

[D_Snow · Accepted solution]

Hi. It might depend on your institution. At my school, it's not possible. No one can access our Canvas courses without an institutional email address - no exceptions. If that's the case for you too, here are some possibilities: 

• Ask your institution to create an account(s) for the individual(s)
• Put the content in a FFT Canvas course
• Use another platform, like Google Classroom

It just depends on what you need (type & duration of access, number of people, etc.). Good luck!

[sima_tarokh]

Thank you very much for your response D_Snow!

I was able to add a "fake user" to the course as a teacher and share its credential with the person who needs to access the course. I probably need to change the password once he/she is done with the course.

Thanks again and have a great weekend!

[Chris_Hofer]

@sima_tarokh ...

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I probably need to change the password once he/she is done with the course.

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Yes, you could certainly do that.  Another possibility to consider... if you are a Canvas administrator, you can just suspend the account as a whole so that nobody can use it until you re-activate it again.  Check out this Guide:

How do I suspend and reactivate users in an account?

Hope this helps a bit!

[sima_tarokh]

Thanks Chris_Hofer! Great advice!

[Chris_Hofer]

@sima_tarokh ....

You're welcome!

And FYI ... instead of typing out our usernames, you can begin with the "@" sign, and then you should see a small window that lets you select names of people participating in this thread that you can click on.  🙂

[sima_tarokh]

@Chris_Hofer 

Thanks again! 🙂