As an Admin, how do I assign a user to a teacher role so they can create courses?

[CPerich]

Hello,

I am an admin trying to set up my teachers in Canvas,. I have added all of them to my system by email, but it thinks they are students and will not allow them to create classes. I made cure to check off that teachers can create courses in the settings menu, but how do I assign a user the role of a teacher? I do not see it anywhere. Thank you.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @CPerich ...

If you are creating users manually one at a time, then as a Canvas administrator, you should create these folks as users first and then enroll them in courses with the "Teacher" role.

• How do I add users to an account?
• How do I add users to a course?

But you can also use the SIS Imports screen to create to do things like create course shells, course sections, and enroll multiple users all at one time into courses.  Here are a bunch of Guides for you to look through:

• What student information system (SIS) integrations are available in Canvas?
• How do I import SIS data to a Canvas account?
• How do I format CSV text files for uploading SIS data into a Canvas account?
• How do I create an automated data integration for an account with Canvas and my SIS?
• How do I practice using the API to import SIS data to a Canvas account?
• What do I need to know about creating a script to automatically import SIS data to a Canvas account?

I hope these resources will be of help to you.  Sing out if you have any questions...thanks!  Take care, stay safe, and be well.

[CPerich]

I don't think this answers my question.

I don't want to add users to a course, I want to allow users to create their courses. When I click on the "Admin -> People" tab and select "Teachers", no one is listed. How do I give someone the role of a teacher so they can create their own courses?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello @CPerich ...

My apologies for the delay in responding.  The bottom of this Guide, How do I set details for an account? - Canvas Community, really doesn't address your question.  But, I just got done chatting with someone from the Canvas Help Desk staff.  I asked him if a user has to be enrolled in at least one course with the "Teacher" role.  His response was, "Yes, you are correct. Teachers have to be given the role of 'Teacher' in at least 1 course to be able to create new course shells in Canvas."  So, a suggestion for your situation would be to create a "sandbox" course for each of your instructors (or maybe you have these set up already?)  "Sandbox" course are just courses that your instructors can "play around" in without students...so they can try different things out in Canvas and maybe build some of their content ... all without disturbing any course content in actual courses.  When you enroll your instructors with the "Teacher" role in the "sandbox" courses, then the admin setting for allowing people with the "Teacher" role to create new courses should work for your needs.

Hope this helps a bit!