Department courses are manually created courses within Canvas that can be used for communication and collaboration with MiraCostans. Some examples of department courses are special collaboration workgroups, academic senate committees, instructional departments, and student clubs.
Requesting Department Courses
Fill out form… here (HOLD)
Adding Users to Department Courses
Instructors of department Canvas courses can add any MiraCosta College user to the course with Student, Teacher, TA, Designer, or Observer permissions. Department courses are not tied to the SURF registration system.
Directions
- Enter your Canvas course
- Click People on the left course menu
- Click the +People button at far right
- Select Login ID
- Enter SURF ID of the user in the box.
- You can enter one user at a time. Example: jjulius
- Or multiples with a comma and space between each. Example: jjulius, sdavis
- Select the appropriate role for the user.
- Available role options are Student, Teacher, TA, Teacher, Designer, Student, and Observer (see below for details on these options)
- Click the Next button
- Some IDs may already be used in Canvas at other colleges. If you get a prompt about this, select the ID that is associated with MiraCosta College.
- Click the Add Users button
Course Roles Explained for Department Courses
Student Role
- Primary use: Students enrolled in a course site.
- 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: Students cannot manipulate settings for a course.
Teacher
- Primary use: The 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: None.
Teaching Assistant (TA) Role
- Primary use: TAs assigned to a specific class to help the instructor.
- Permissions: TAs have permissions equivalent to the Teacher role. They have all course-level permissions, including the ability to add, edit and delete all content in a course; grade students; edit course settings, and manually add individuals with active Canvas user accounts.
- Limitations: None.
Designer
- Primary use: Department staff, content providers, and other instructional support staff.
- Permissions: Create course content, discussions, announcements, assignments, quizzes, and other content features.
- Limitations: Designers cannot add other individuals to a course and cannot access grades.
Observer
- Primary use: Mentors, advisors, and others who need to monitor a student in a course. This is not for course evaluation.
- Permissions: Observers have access to view course content.
- Limitations: Observers have no permissions to edit or participate in course activities.
- See the Canvas guide on the Observer role for more info
