Adding people to a course through the Canvas interface

This page details how to add people to a course through the Canvas interface (with regular permissions); and also as an LCC or Unit Admin (with broader permissions).

Note that the core process of adding people is the same regardless of your permission levels on Canvas; however the routes to access the interface to add people are different. 

 

You can add people (or groups of people) to a course through the standard interface as described below; or by using the Group Enrolment Tool (GET) (shown on the Global Navigation menu as 'Oxford Groups').  The Group Enrolment Tool is the best way to enrol cohorts of students in courses for a new academic year, since course membership will be dynamically updated from central University systems as students join or leave the course.

However, you may also need to enrol individuals or smaller groups of staff or students. Do this manually as described below.

Note: if you want to add staff to all courses in a department or across a programme, it may be more effective to grant them a sub-account role. They will then be able to access all courses without being enrolled on them and having them all on their Dashboard.

 

Adding users

When a user is added manually to a course, Canvas generates an email course invitation. The user must accept the course invitation to participate in the course. Until the user accepts the course invitation, the user's status will display as 'pending'.

Conversely, if individuals are enrolled into courses through a background process (such as the GET), they will not receive an invitation notice; they will immediately see the course appear as a 'tile' on their Dashboard when they next log in (providing the course is published). 

Note: Remember that anyone enrolled onto courses through the Canvas interface will receive an email for each course they are added to. Therefore, this is not the recommended route when adding people to multiple courses.  

 

To add users to a course through the Canvas interface with regular permissions:

1. Click People from the Course Navigation menu.

2. Click the +People button.

3. Follow steps 2 to 7 below. 

 

To add users to a course through the Canvas interface with LCC or Unit Admin permissions:

1. You can add users within a Canvas course as an LCC or Unit Admin by clicking Admin on your Global Navigation menu, then scrolling to find the course in question and clicking the + at the far right of the screen. 

 

2. You can add or search for users with one of three options: Email address, Login ID, or SIS ID (unique ID across Canvas). We recommend using the SIS ID option which at Oxford is their SSO username (e.g. abcd1234).

3. To add users by SIS ID, select the SIS ID button [1] (System ID). In the text field [2], enter the SSO for the user. You can copy and paste multiple SSOs at one time by placing a comma or line break between SSOs. Please note: Enter all SSOs in lowercase as the field is case sensitive.

 

4. Next ensure you assign them the correct role [1] and, if relevant, section [2] . Learn more about Sections.

 

5. If you want to limit the user(s) to interact only with other users Links to an external site. in their section, click the Can interact with users in their section only checkbox [3]; this will rarely be the case in Oxford.  Click the Next button [4].

6.  If the user ID is found you will be asked to confirm it is correct before they are added. The user's name will appear alongside the information you used to find them in the user search. If the information shown is correct, click  Add users to complete the action.

7. If the intended user was not found, you can click the Start over button. Note that this usually happens when an SSO has been mistyped, but in a small number of cases it may be because they do not have a Canvas account.  If this is the case, contact canvas@it.ox.ac.uk to request the creation of a new user account in Canvas on their behalf.

Note:

  • We recommend starting with sections All Students and All Staff so you have the option to send announcements only to students.
  • If you are adding multiple users at the same time, all users inherit the same role and section.