Canvas Free-Act as User

[KaseyCoke]

Is it possible to act as user in the Canvas free for teacher? We went from the paid version at our school to having to use the free version. I am used to being able to act as user for my kids to look at some of their things, but no longer can. 

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @KaseyCoke,

The "Act As" option is only available for users who are Canvas administrators (and are given the permission to use the that option).  Since Free for teacher doesn't have the ability to make any users administrators, there is really no way to use the Act As feature in that environment.

Can you tell us exactly what you were using that to look at previously, and also perhaps whether you're a teacher, school admin, etc.  I'd say it's pretty rare )but not unheard of) for teachers to be given administrative access like it sounds like you had with your paid instance.  If we know what exactly you were using that access to look at, we might be able to suggest some alternatives that would work in Free for teacher.

-Chris

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @KaseyCoke,

The "Act As" option is only available for users who are Canvas administrators (and are given the permission to use the that option).  Since Free for teacher doesn't have the ability to make any users administrators, there is really no way to use the Act As feature in that environment.

Can you tell us exactly what you were using that to look at previously, and also perhaps whether you're a teacher, school admin, etc.  I'd say it's pretty rare )but not unheard of) for teachers to be given administrative access like it sounds like you had with your paid instance.  If we know what exactly you were using that access to look at, we might be able to suggest some alternatives that would work in Free for teacher.

-Chris

[KaseyCoke]

I am a teacher, I was one of the canvas administrators for our campus since I was more familiar with the LMS and could help fellow teachers with adding students, etc. There are a few kids who have two last names in my classes and I need to add the hyphen or change their names so my gradebook goes in true alphabetical order. There are also a few other teachers on our campus using the free version of Canvas as well & have been asking for me to help set up their students. 

[KevinMeredith · Accepted solution]

Right; unfortunately, we cannot grant this kind of access to the teacher level, as our instances of FFT serve thousands of educators, and we can't open up those privileges to all. Hope that makes sense. 

[KevinMeredith]

@KaseyCoke if there's specific needs, please let me know here. 

[KaseyCoke]

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Thank you for your response! The most specific thing I am needing is to be able to change kids names for my gradebook. Is there a way I can change it just from what I see or would I have to get the kids to change their name?

[ColtonSwapp]

Hello @KaseyCoke 

Just wanted to follow up on your question here.

There is not a way to adjust the students names for the Gradebook, unfortunately. 

However, you do have the ability to adjust the the way the student data is sorted in the Gradebook. HERE is the Canvas guide on how that works.

-Colton