Can you lock the course_format field?

[ldavenport4015]

We are considering adding the course format field (on campus, onlline, blended) to our SIS Import for courses to aid in reporting. I can't find that that field can be locked. From the Canvas SIS documentation it is not a "sticky" field, so will it get overwritten with every SIS Import even if it is changed by the instructor? 

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @ldavenport4015 I can't speak to the locking, but our ITS team 'brute force' items that we want to suppress by adding them to a .javascript blocker.

However this does mean that the .js has to be updated every time there is a new Instructure update.

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @ldavenport4015 I can't speak to the locking, but our ITS team 'brute force' items that we want to suppress by adding them to a .javascript blocker.

However this does mean that the .js has to be updated every time there is a new Instructure update.

[ldavenport4015]

Hello @paul_fynn  Thanks for the idea! I'm pretty sure we won't choose that option (yet) for the very challenge you mention, but it's in our pocket if we find we need to hide that field.

[chriscas]

Hi @ldavenport4015,

Can you clarify...  Do you want your teachers to be able to change the field in Canvas and have that stick, or do you not want teachers to be able to change the field at all?

-Chris

[ldavenport4015]

Hello Chris,

We'd prefer that we could lock that field so that instructors can't change it. The course format is set by the university based on specific guidelines. To report on course use, activity, etc., it would be helpful if we could trust the informatiom in that field and not have to join with university tables to grab course format for reporting. 

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @ldavenport4015,

Got it.  I think @paul_fynn is correct in that you'd need to di some customization for this.  If you add the follwoing line to a javascript file and upload it to your Canvas theme, it should work (best practice would also to be to put this inside an if statement that checks that you're on the course settings page, but I wanted to keep this simple to get you a potential solution):

document.getElementById("course_course_format").disabled=true

 While these customizations could break at any time with a Canvas update, I have found they are relatively stable and have a number of similar little customzations done in javascript for our Canvas instance.

-Chris