News and Announcements

Canvas - Manage Course Templates 07/26/2022

Posted: 2022-07-26 11:02:31   Expiration: 2022-08-02 11:02:31

Disclaimer: This news item was originally posted on 2022-07-26 11:02:31. Its content may no longer be timely or accurate.

On 07/26/2022, the University of Wisconsin System (except for UW Madison) instance of Canvas made two changes to allow campus Canvas administrators greater ability to manage Canvas course templates: 1) The "Manage Course Templates" permission was added to the Institutional Admin role 2) A new "Course Template Admin" role was created with the "Account-level settings - manage" and "Manage Course Templates" permissions.

The stated goal of the original change request is to allow campus departments greater ability to pre-populate courses with information such as sample syllabi or college/program information. Course templates may have other benefits. These changes do not imply permission to alter course home page or course navigation elements which are locked at the UW System-level to ensure a consistent student experience.

The Roles and Permissions working group recommends caution and careful testing before applying course templates across an entire campus's SIS-integrated courses, as applying a template simultaneously to hundreds or thousands of courses may cause slowdowns or disruptions of the nightly Canvas/PeopleSoft integration.

For more information on Course Templates, see Instructure's How do I enable a course as a course template guide. For more information about the Institution Admin and Course Template Admin roles in the UW System (except for UW Madison) instance of Canvas, see the Canvas - Account Level Roles Description guide.

-- UWSA DLE: Thomas Arendalkowski