Oxford Groups (GET): Using Offer Holder Groups
In the past, applicants could be enrolled in Canvas courses regardless of their offer status. In order to comply with data privacy requirements (for example, avoiding the inadvertant dissemination of information to those who may not accept their offer), applicants now get access to Canvas only if their offer has been confirmed and they have accepted their offer.
Offer-holding applicants exist as a group within the Oxford Groups tool (GET), called Offer Holders; when they receive their SSO account, they will be seamlessly moved over to their SSO account in Canvas, without any loss of content or data.
Automatic provisioning
All offer-holding applicants are automatically provided with access to Canvas by clicking on Other Users, and entering the email address that they supplied during the application process. This means that colleges and/or programmes of study can provide learning materials to these applicants before they receive their SSO accounts.
Individual applicants
You may enrol individual applicants in a Canvas course using the email address that they supplied during the application process. If you do not know that address, consider enabling self-enrolment in the Canvas course and then provide the individual(s) with suitable instructions and the self-enrolment link:
Offer Holder groups in the GET
To support enrolling offer holders in Canvas courses, a new set of groups for Offer Holders is available in the Oxford Groups tool (GET) – one relating to their programme of study and one to their college:
Teachers, tutors and administrators can thus enrol these offer holders in Canvas courses, either to support them with pre-course materials, or to grant access to courses of study before they officially begin their studies at Oxford.
Registering their account and setting a password
When an Offer Holder account is created, they do not get an email telling them to activate their account and set a password (since there may be nothing to see when they log in to Canvas). Therefore, the department (or college) needs to tell them to visit the relevant Canvas course link and log in to Canvas using the ‘Other Users’ option and the email address that they used during the application process (as their user name). The first time they do that, they will need to click on the 'Forgot password?' link in order to activate their account, set a password and access the course.
Embargo period for communicating with Offer Holders
Note: University policy requires that during embargo periods you do not communicate with offer holders in any way, that might directly reveal or indirectly allude to their results. ‘Communication’ in its widest sense includes enrolling offer holders and making updates in relevant Canvas courses, or adding them as external users using the Manage External Users tool in Canvas. The University would incur a substantial fine if this policy is broken, so it must be adhered to rigorously.
There are two embargo periods: the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) results embargo (usually from end of July to about 10th August); and the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) results embargo (usually around the middle two weeks of August).
Rollover of Canvas courses
Note: Offer Holder groups in the Group Enrolment Tool (GET) are NOT included when checking the option ‘Include Groups’ while rolling over a course in the Manage Courses tool. This is to ensure that next year's offer holders do not get inappropriate access to Canvas courses.
If you do want to give access to a particular offer holding group in the rolled over course, then you may add them manually using the People tool.
Automatic transition to SSO account
When the offer holders have received and activated their Oxford single signon (SSO) accounts, their pre-SSO account will be automatically merged with the SSO account in Canvas. That is, no manual merging of the accounts is required, and the students do not lose access or any contributions that they may have previously made to the Canvas course(s).
Students will receive an automatic email message to inform them of the different log-in procedure required (i.e. via Oxford Users instead of via Other Users).