[Permissions] Add a "Copy Content" course permission

[michelle_coots]

Problem statement:

Add a course permission for COPY content. This was baked into the TA & Teacher role until July 2022 when someone in Canvas decided that this was a bug and lumped in use of the "copy to" feature with the add/edit/delete content permission. We have many staff users added as TAs to courses where there is a full course build as a resource where they can pull parts of a course - whether that be a module or content item. Yes, they are able to go into their own course and use "import existing content"; however this is not as user-friendly as the "copy to" feature. We cannot provide them with access to add/edit/delete content since we don't want them changing anything in the shared courses, just be able to pull it into their own class. We would like to request that this change get re-evaluated. We need an option where users can have VIEW only access WITH the option to COPY content. We had this previously since the Teacher & TA roles have some abilities "baked in" - one of these being copying content. If this is not going to return as a baked-in ability, then a permission NEEDS to be made available. Here are the reasons why other approaches noted by Canvas Support will NOT work.

OPTION 1: Give permission to add / edit / delete content Users in our shared courses should ONLY be able to VIEW & COPY. We do NOT want them to make any changes in the shared course.

OPTION 2: Share to Commons Our shares contain content for a full course. Teachers get to select which pieces that they want to use. Some may use all of it and others may use part of it. We don't want to share as a full course in commons since that would require users to import everything in the course (and overwrite some campus specific template components). We don't want to share content in Commons by module since we have over 200 courses with several modules in each and there is not a way to GROUP content shared in commons (e.g. 3rd grade math modules). Finding the individual shared modules would be VERY messy and difficult for our teachers to locate the desired content.

OPTION 3: Blueprints to Shares We would need a whole additional layer of courses - a build course (where content is made), a blueprint course (containing the finished master content), and a shared course (receiving locked content from a blueprint) - where it sounds like teachers would be given the permission to add/edit/delete content. However, this is NOT a granular permission. So, even if we went through the hassle to setup this whole extra layer of courses, we don't want teachers to add their own content into the official course shares.

OPTION 4: Blueprints to Teachers In our district teachers have ownership of the course shells they teach in and we do not push content in since our shares are a resource they can look at and pull content from, when desired. We did blueprinting into teachers' courses one year and ran into a myriad of issues - including overwriting teacher-created content with blueprint syncs, the overwhelming burden in managing blueprint associations, and some content issues with blueprints.

OPTION 5: Change course/term dates Doing this would lock the course and not allow adding any additional enrollments. We need to maintain the ability for adding new users. The ramifications of making changes related to this perceived bug are far-reaching and greatly detrimental to workflows in our district.

We would like to request that Canvas adds a course permission for COPYing content that is SEPARATE from add/edit/delete. Thank you.

Proposed solution:

Create a course permission for "Copy Content" that includes the use of the "copy to" feature. Adding a "Copy Content" course permission will allow view-only Teacher/TA roles to use "COPY to" without needing to have the add/edit/delete permission.

User role(s):

admin,instructor,ta

[Code-with-Ski]

This would be a useful granular permission to have. I agree that those are excellent examples of useful scenarios when it would be useful to allow copying without permission to add/edit/delete.

In addition to being able to grant the permission, it would also have the nice feature of helping to prevent copying of content that shouldn't be shared beyond the course.