Roles are collective sets of permissions and limitations placed on a user in Canvas.

Permissions are assigned to roles and allow users with those roles to access certain features and perform certain functions in Canvas.

At UTK, your course-level role in Online@UT (Canvas) controls which permissions you have in a specific course site.

Through our integration with Banner, if you are listed as either the Primary Instructor or Secondary Instructor of record, then you will automatically be enrolled in your course site(s).

If needed, Primary instructors can only enroll additional users into their course sites with the following roles: Secondary Instructor, Teacher Assistant, Teacher, Designer, and Observer. Primary instructors cannot enroll additional users with the 'student' role. Student enrollments are managed daily by the data provided by Banner. If you add a user to your course site multiple times, assigning that user a different role each time, they will have the combined permissions of each role you assigned.

Student

Primary use: Students enrolled in a course site through the Registrar's Office.
Permissions: The Student role has permissions to view course content and engage in course activities, including the ability to submit assignments, participate in discussions, and view the course roster.
Limitations: Cannot manipulate settings for a course.

If you need to add students who are completing an incomplete, please contact the OIT HelpDesk by phone at 865-974-9900 or online at https://help.utk.edu. We will need the Student's NetID and your Course CRN to enroll them in your course site.

Teacher

Primary use: Custom Canvas course sites not provided by the Registrar's Office.
Permissions: Teachers have all course-level permissions, including the ability to add, edit, and delete all content in a course, and edit course settings.
Limitations: Cannot add or edit external tool (LTI) functionality. [NOTE: If a user is added as a Teacher in a non-custom Canvas course site, they cannot add/remove students for the course or manage (create/edit/delete) course sections.]

Primary Instructor

Primary use: Instructor assigned to teach a class.
Permissions: Teachers have all course-level permissions, including the ability to add, edit, and delete all content in a course, edit course settings, and manually add individuals with active Canvas user accounts.
Limitations: Cannot add/remove students for the course. Cannot add or edit LTI functionality.

Secondary Instructor

Primary use: Instructor assigned to teach a class.
Permissions: Teachers have all course-level permissions, including the ability to add, edit, and delete all content in a course, and edit course settings.
Limitations: Cannot add/remove students for the course. Cannot add or edit LTI functionality. Cannot manage (create/edit/delete) course sections.

Teaching Assistant (TA)

Primary use: TAs assigned to a specific class section.
Permissions: TAs have permissions similar to the Teacher role. They have all course-level permissions, including the ability to add, edit, and delete all content in a course, and edit course settings.
Limitations: Cannot add/remove other teachers, course designers or TAs to the course. Cannot add/remove students to/from the course.

Designer/Librarian

Primary use: Typically OIT Instructional Design staff, content providers, UTK Librarians, and other instructional support.
Permissions: Create course content, discussions, announcements, assignments, quizzes, and other content features.
Limitations: Cannot add other individuals to a course and cannot access grades or student data.

Observer

Primary use: Student Advisors typically from the Thornton Athletic Center and/or the Student Success Center.
Permissions: Observers have access to view course content. This role can be linked to a student enrolled in a course in order to monitor his/her progress.
Limitations: This role allows the user to access courses on a read-only basis. This role differs from the Student role because no course participation is allowed so they cannot contribute to discussions, submit assignments or quizzes, participate in collaborations, view grades, etc.