ARCHIVED: Oncourse permissions and roles: Overview

What they do

Permissions allow users to access certain features of a site. Which permissions are granted depends on the users' roles, and on the decisions made by the site owner and the system administrator.

Roles are collections of permissions. Some roles allow users to simply access or read content, while other roles allow for advanced changes, such as adding participants, editing the site's content, and changing permissions for other roles.

Key concepts

Roles with broad permissions: As a general rule, the person for whom the site was created (e.g., a site owner or an instructor) has full permissions, and can add or delete content within the site. This includes (within the limits established by the system administrator) choosing the tools in the menubar and setting permissions for other roles in many of those tools.

Limited roles: Other roles, typically intended for people such as students, members (rather than leaders) of project teams, etc., have more restrictive permissions, but may be able to interact in the site. For example, a person with a more limited role might be able to create forum postings within a forum set up by the site owner, but generally could not create assignments. Some roles may have an intermediate level of permissions.

Things to remember

• The availability of a tool in a site depends on the particular implementation of the system administrator. If you have broad rights to a site, and find that a tool is not available through Site Setup, consult your administrator.
• The Resources and Drop Box tools share the same permissions set. You can modify them in the Resources tool.
• Default roles have default permissions. These defaults can be edited on the system level by the system administrator, and on the site level by anyone with full permissions to the site.
• All users are assigned the broadest role in their respective My Workspaces to give them editing control.
• UITS grants access to administrative tools within Canvas and Oncourse to people who provide support to the Indiana University campus community. An academic department can designate its own administrator to provide support for its students and instructors in the department. The designated administrator then applies for administrative access and renews the application annually. Department administrators have full administrative rights for viewing, editing, and migrating all LMS courses within a specific department.

Help documentation

For help documentation about permissions and roles, see ARCHIVED: Permissions and roles.