Roles and Permissions

There are several roles available in a Brightspace site. Anyone managing a site or instructing a course will be in the Instructor role. Learners or other site members will be in the Student role.

An Instructor has the ability to both add anyone (with an existing Brock University account) to a site they control and change the role of other site members. Individuals can be added in the Classist or through the Add an Instructor or Teaching Assistant widget on a site’s homepage.

There are many permissions associated with the different roles and these cannot be adjusted by Instructors. What follows is a summary of these roles in relation to Brightspace’s core tools.

Course Offering Roles

Instructor

Instructors are typically added through Brock University’s official scheduling records in BrockDB. For project sites, the creator of the site will be initially added as an Instructor.

Instructor permissions

• Announcements: Can add and remove announcements.

• Assessment: Instructors have access to all elements.

• Classlist: Instructors can add and remove all users, including other instructors.

• Class Progress and Content Reports: Has full access to student progress and content access.

• Content: Instructors can read, add and remove all content.

• Course Offering Information and access: Can activate and deactivate the course, modify availability dates, the course navigation, and the title. Can access inactive sites.

• Discussions: Instructors have access to all discussion postings and can edit and remove them.

Teaching Assistant

Only Instructors can add individuals to the Teaching Assistant role. This can be done for specific sections in Classlist (sections can mean Brock University lecture sections, seminars, labs and tutorials) or to all course sections through the Add an Instructor or Teaching Assistant widget. Teaching Assistants are assumed to be grading and trusted with course communications. If the individual is expected to have additional responsibilities, this may better map to the Instructor role. If access to content is the only goal, then Read Only might be more appropriate.

Teaching Assistant permissions

• Announcements: Can add and remove announcements.

• Assessment: Teaching Assistants have access to all elements, including releasing feedback.

• Classlist: Teaching Assistants can access the Classlist but cannot add and remove users. Cannot view or edit other users' accommodations.

• Class Progress and Content Reports: Has full access to student progress but not Content Reports.

• Content: Can view hidden content but cannot remove content.

• Course Offering Information and access: Can access inactive sites.

• Discussions: Teaching Assistants have access to all discussion postings and can edit and remove only their own posts.

Student Accessibility Services

Instructors can optionally add the appropriate individual from Student Accessibility Services to the Student Accessibility Services role, allowing them to check on content or edit accommodations. If access to content is the only goal, such as for a note taker, then Read Only might be more appropriate.

Student Accessibility Services permissions

• Announcements: Can read announcements.

• Assessment: Can view assessments and submit, but not be graded.

• Classlist: Can view the Classlist but cannot add and remove users. Can view and edit users' accommodations.

• Class Progress and Content Reports: Has full access to student progress but not Content Reports.

• Content: Cannot view hidden content or remove content.

• Course Offering Information and access: Can access inactive sites.

• Discussions: Can view discussion postings.

Student

Students are normally automatically added to a course offering based on their enrollment records in BrockDB (with a delay of up to two hours during operating hours). Instructors can also manually add students.

Student permissions

• Announcements: Can read announcements.

• Assessment: Can view assessments, submit and have their work graded.

• Classlist: No access to the Classlist.

• Class Progress and Content Reports: Can see their own progress, cannot access Content Reports.

• Content: Cannot view hidden content.

• Course Offering Information and access: Can only access active sites.

• Discussions: Can create and edit their own discussion postings. Can view others' postings unless topic settings are restricted by the Instructor.

Read Only

This role is intended to facilitate access to content only.

Read Only permissions

• Announcements: Can read announcements.

• Assessment: Can view assessments and submit, but not be graded.

• Classlist: No access to the Classlist.

• Class Progress and Content Reports: No access.

• Content: Cannot view hidden content.

• Course Offering Information and access: Can only access active sites.

• Discussions: Can view discussion postings unless restrictions are placed by the Instructor.

There are additional administrative roles that are granted through Brock University’s Security Access Request Form (SARF) reach out to cpi@brocku.ca with questions about these roles.