How to add a user to all courses with read only permissions in Canvas?

[stuartp]

I need to add a user who can view course material for all the courses but not change anything. Can anyone please help with this?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hey there, @stuartp ...

Check out this blog posting that I wrote back in 2017 on how your Canvas administrator can create a "Viewer" role (based on the "Teacher" role type) and then configure the permissions accordingly.

Our Custom "Viewer" Role for "Master" Courses

Hopefully this will meet your needs, but let me know if you have any questions (or just post your question on the link I've provided...that works, too).  Take care...

[stuartp]

Hey Chris_Hofer
Thanks for sharing this but I still have one question. How can I apply this role to one user for all courses (as a bulk action). Appreciate your thoughts on that.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @stuartp ...

I *think* you would probably want to use SIS Imports for this kind of thing.  I don't have as much experience with that, though.  But, I do know that using SIS Imports is a quicker way to bulk upload users (or a single user) to multiple courses in Canvas.  Here is a link to the administrator Guides to SIS Imports:

Admin Guide - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

Hope that this will help a bit.  Hopefully some others will also see this topic and be able to chime in on some of the specifics on what you might need to include in your CSV files to import.  Take care...