Instructor Profile for Student Viewing

[drs02040]

Is the best place for an instructor profile (for students to see) in People, or should I put my profile separately and hide People?  My concern is that, while it is convenient to direct students to open my profile in People, should all students have access to everyone else's info in the class this way?  Are there privacy concerns here?  Or am I over-thinking this?

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

That is a reasonable concern, I think, and I'm not crazy about how much information is shown about other students.  I would probably make a profile page that you can share, or add a link to your Canvas profile somewhere in the class.

Mike

[Shar]

Hi David Seager,

I agree with Michael-- make a separate profile page in the course with contact information and policy about whether you prefer Canvas messages or email, stick it in a beginning module so that students can find it easily, and put a link to it on your front page.

In general, I always include a page for the instructors so they can put their info for the course there along with introducing any TA's or other course author contributors. It's not always obvious to students who the powers that be are in the course from the People tab, and if your students are k-12, you might hide the People tab anyway.

Cheers - Shar

[venitk]

It's also worth noting that your Profile follows you around in Canvas, regardless of the course. 

If you create an Instructor Introduction as a page in each course, you can tailor that to the specific course.

I recommend my instructors do both: include generic details on their Profile (what campus they're from since we're a multi-campus program, yadda yadda) and create a more specific introduction to put in the course information module of the course that they teach. 

Students can access your profile outside of People--they can click on your name that appears under announcements, or discussion boards, etc. But I recommend instructors include the meat of their information in the Instructor Information page--tailored to the specific course--in a course information module.