Within Online@UT (Canvas), Primary Instructors have permissions to enroll users manually into their Canvas courses. In most cases, co-instructors, TAs, and colleagues are added automatically via Banner, using the Secondary Instructor or TA role. Users with the role of Student cannot be added manually to Canvas courses, and users cannot be added to past course sites, as they have moved into a “concluded” state and are read-only.

However, in the rare case that an instructor needs to add a user manually to their current, active Canvas course, it is important for the instructor to consider what role they are using to do so. Adding a person to a Canvas course with the Teacher, TA, or Instructor (Primary or Secondary) role gives that person access to student information, assignment information, and grades. If a user has been added to a Canvas course with one of these roles that should not otherwise have access to student information and grades, then this results in a FERPA violation, as well as exposing the university to potential legal liability issues.

Please take extra care with how you manually add users to Canvas courses in which you are the Primary Instructor. If in doubt, contact the Canvas support team before adding anyone, and if necessary, the Office of the University Registrar can be contacted to find the most secure way for users to access your class.