Allow teachers to add people after courses conclude

(2)
          
  Idea open for vote Wed. September 7, 2016 - Wed. December 7, 2016  Learn more about voting...


I would like for teachers to have the ability to add people (specifically other teachers) to their concluded courses. At the beginning of each term I receive an abundance of requests to add other teachers to past courses for various reasons. Currently I have to change the course term setting, then add the teacher, masquerade as teacher to accept course invitation, and then go back and reset the course term. This is a very cumbersome process. I can't think of a disadvantage to allowing teachers to add people to concluded courses but I do know it would be helpful to me!

 

 

   

  Comments from Instructure

 

Greetings all!

I am going to archive this idea, as it is not something we will be developing as a general solution.

After reading all of your comments above, we have come to the following conclusions:

  1. When it comes to sharing course content, Commons or setting up a shared course shell is a viable solution
  2. Every school has different internal policies on who and when teachers and TAs can be added to a course.  Creating a feature that ignores these policies is not something we should be involved in and should be handled at the local admin level.
  3. When we look at idea votes, we also look at diversity of voters.  This idea seems to be important to less than a handful of schools.  (which is why we are archiving it as a general solution).  If these schools are interested in a solution, they can contact their CSM to be put in contact with Professional Services.
31 Comments
scottdennis
Instructure
Instructure

Hi Christy,

Thank you for submitting this feature idea.  As far as I can tell it hasn't ever been voted on by the community but will open for vote on Sept 7th.  Please come back and vote for it!

it1
Community Novice

I get these requests often as well, looking forward to putting in my vote!

jordan
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

This idea has moved to the next stage and will be open for voting among the Canvas Community, from Wed. September 7, 2016 - Wed. December 7, 2016.

Check out this doc for additional details about how the voting process works! Smiley Wink

cbarham
Community Novice

The idea is open for voting now. So, please share with your faculty so we can make this happen Smiley Happy

carrbc
Community Member

Christy, Looks like you voted this "down" by accident?

jthoms
Community Novice

Please note the related request, which includes a workaround by Deactivated user here:

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/6125​ (open for voting until 11/12/16)

mnall
Community Member

This would be especially helpful to new teachers using Canvas that are the only ones teaching their subject in a given school, like high school arts courses.  I am the only returning HS choir director in my county, there are 3 new ones to the county that could benefit from the chance to see my previous courses that are completed.

brendaa
Community Contributor

Yes, please!  We also get requests from faculty who want to share course materials with new faculty and are surprised they can no longer invite teachers or TAs to the course. 

Mario_Guerra
Community Explorer

Implementing this change would alleviate a huge problem we encounter at the beginning of every semester.  We conclude the previous term two weeks after the semester ends, which works great for the majority, but causes headache for faculty who want to add colleagues to a previous semester course.  Awesome suggestion cbarham​!

tdelillo
Community Champion

I won't vote it down, but I prefer our faculty to not add other Teachers and TA's to their courses, concluded or otherwise. A big reason is student info and grades. I'm not comfortable with giving someone who is not the teacher of record unfettered access to the coursework and grades for the class.

cbarham​ - Are these requests mainly coming from people who want access to the course content? Because there are numerous ways to address that. Or do they actually want the teachers to be able to view the student data?

cbarham
Community Novice

Tracey,

I understand your reservations. We currently allow teachers to add users (all roles) to their active courses because we don't have that concern.

But I have definitely tried to push teachers to share their courses to Commons and share that way. Unfortunately, that is a very slow process getting our teachers to embrace that idea. Also, many times teachers don't want the whole course (so exporting and importing isn't a good option either.)

Thanks,

Christy

jordan
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

cbarham​ et al,

Here's a workaround I posted on another thread that you could use today, which would allow teachers to see concluded courses without adding them to the course...

  1. Create a custom "Account Role"
  2. Only allow one permission: "View course content"
  3. You can use the API to quickly assign all instructors, that would need access to other courses, to this custom Account Role.

The result would be that these individuals who are assigned to that custom role would be able to access essentially any course that they have the course number of. So if the current teacher shares the course number with the next instructor, that instructor could visit the course and would not see any student submissions or student-specific content (like discussions). They would also have the ability to EXPORT the course.

This might not be ideal for your circumstance, but maybe it could work! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks for the reminder  @jthoms ​ 😉

cbarham
Community Novice

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I don't think that would work for us. Many of our teachers are protective of their content and would not want everyone to be able to see their courses. (That is why they haven't responded to Canvas Commons either). -- I'm working on it Smiley Happy

But, just out to satisfy my curiosity, would they also be able to import selected content into their courses (without the whole export)?

Thanks,

Christy

adavid7
Community Novice

At my university, there is a role available for people called "Guest Teacher." I haven't experimented with it, but if that would let other teachers view the content, export it, etc., but not see FERPA-protected student info, would that do the trick?Deactivated user​

cbarham
Community Novice

Thank you for the suggestion. The issue in our district is not the role. We are comfortable with teachers being added as "teachers". Our issue is that it is not currently possible for a teacher to add another teacher, TA, guest teacher, etc. to their course after it has concluded. That can only be done by the district admin.

Thanks again for trying to help us troubleshoot!

jordan
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Thanks for the additional explanation!

adavid7
Community Novice

In our system, as a teacher, I can go back to a course I previously taught, change the end date to today, and then add a new teacher to the course. This is very useful, although ridiculously cumbersome, if I want to allow another teacher to then import this course to her own course site.

This often happens when someone new is going to teach a course that has been taught previously and wants (and the department wants her) to use the same syllabus.

ezaurova
Community Participant

You bring up a good point, Tracey.  I would add the new instructor as an "observer" so they wouldn't have access to change the course, or view sensitive student information.  Unfortunately, as it stands now, no one can be added to a concluded course, under any role.

cdoherty
Community Participant

In addition to the ability for instructors to add people to concluded courses, this feature idea would have to allow those added people to accept an invitation to and access the concluded course. If the second part is not enabled, it won't be useful

cbarham
Community Novice

You are right! I usually go in and masquerade as the user and accept the invitation for them before going back and changing the term dates again. Sometimes I forget and have to go back and do it all over again!

Thanks for adding that!