Showing an administrator about for one of my Canvas course, I noticed that he has access to the course as me. There was an option for him to take click "Preview" for a quiz I made and it also gave him the option "Keep Editing Quiz." This feature and any features that allows an admin to edit the course assignments and grades should be restricted.
Hi, Sammi Venegas! I noticed this setting in my course, as well. I believe your Canvas admin can change this role. Do you know who that is at your institution?
As an admin, we need to be able to access, review and edit anything and everything. That is what an admin role in any software application is all about, and this is especially so in an LMS - we need this to support our users, all of our users.
I can literally think of hundreds of examples over the 14 years I have been an LMS admin, where this level of permissions was absolutely necessary. Just one example: your course is fully online, you have a high-stakes test set for tomorrow and tomorrow is the only possible window of opportunity for that test (happens all the time), and something happens to you tonight. Your students call us in the morning and there is something wrong with the test. We have to fix it to make it available for the students - that is our job. And in 14 years, I have never heard of an LMS admin do something a teacher would not approve of in their courses, although I can imagine it could happen.
Also, there are many faculty who are not proficient with all of the features in Canvas, and we often have to accomplish things for them that they cannot accomplish themselves - this is what an admin is for.
We have several examples of instructional tech at our school that do not provide any level of local admin access. This is a nightmare, because we cannot help our users beyond saying, "call this 1-800 and hope you can get help soon."
Nope, very bad idea to limit admin access. If you are somehow concerned about your admins engaging in some kind of activity you don't approve of, then that is an entirely separate issue and needs to be dealt with separately. Also, keep in mind that despite all the opinions folks have about academic freedom - your courses are not really your courses. They belong to your school. You work for your school, and so does your Canvas Admin.
Kelley
Hi Sammi Venegas
As an admin, we need to be able to access, review and edit anything and everything. That is what an admin role in any software application is all about, and this is especially so in an LMS - we need this to support our users, all of our users.
I can literally think of hundreds of examples over the 14 years I have been an LMS admin, where this level of permissions was absolutely necessary. Just one example: your course is fully online, you have a high-stakes test set for tomorrow and tomorrow is the only possible window of opportunity for that test (happens all the time), and something happens to you tonight. Your students call us in the morning and there is something wrong with the test. We have to fix it to make it available for the students - that is our job. And in 14 years, I have never heard of an LMS admin do something a teacher would not approve of in their courses, although I can imagine it could happen.
Also, there are many faculty who are not proficient with all of the features in Canvas, and we often have to accomplish things for them that they cannot accomplish themselves - this is what an admin is for.
We have several examples of instructional tech at our school that do not provide any level of local admin access. This is a nightmare, because we cannot help our users beyond saying, "call this 1-800 and hope you can get help soon."
Nope, very bad idea to limit admin access. If you are somehow concerned about your admins engaging in some kind of activity you don't approve of, then that is an entirely separate issue and needs to be dealt with separately. Also, keep in mind that despite all the opinions folks have about academic freedom - your courses are not really your courses. They belong to your school. You work for your school, and so does your Canvas Admin.
Kelley