One of my students said in class today that unpublished material is visible to him

[DilipBarman]

I gave a test today and one student said that he could see when logged in to his student canvas account unpublished material including the test's answer key. I told him to take and send me a screen shot. I just double checked and he is enrolled as Student and in student view I don't see my unpublished material. What could be going wrong? Thanks.

        --Dilip

[NoahBoswell]

Hey @DilipBarman ,

Thanks for posting on the Instructure Community!

Is this student by chance an admin of the account that your course is associated with? If so, regardless of what role he is enrolled with, canvas will override the role he has in the course with the admin role permissions he has. I know this isn't a typical reason, but I have certainly heard of students with admin roles in certain sub-accounts for various reasons.

Another possible reason would be... is he by chance enrolled as a student now, but in his prior enrollments a teacher/ta/designer? If so, even if he is enrolled as a student currently, if he has a concluded role in another section (or even the same section), he will still see everything as a teacher would.

Hope this helps and of course please respond with any additional questions or comments!

Best,
Noah

[DilipBarman]

Thanks. No he's always - this year and last year - been a student.

[NoahBoswell]

@DilipBarman This is quite interesting… and he just started being able to see the course as an instructor? Is he able to actually publish and unpublish content, or just view that content? And, you are able to see users in all sections of your course, right? Sometimes it’s set to limit you to only see certain students in a section, and if there’s an additional section you’re not enrolled in inside that course (that a canvas admin could make), they can make it so you are unable to see them listed as a teacher or TA.

Have you by chance removed him and re-added him to the course? I recommend removing him, seeing if he is still able to access the course with the teacher view, and then re add him. If he can still see the course as a teacher even when he isn’t enrolled, then he’s either enrolled in a section as a teacher in the course that an admin made that you for some reason don’t see, was previously enrolled as a teacher or TA accidentally recently and the admin only concluded the enrollment and didn’t actually delete it, or he is an admin of the account your course is associated with.

I also recommend reaching out to your school’s canvas team to see if they can see what’s going on. They’re able to pull up all of his information on the admin side and see all the courses, groups and accounts that he is enrolled in, as well as with what role.

All the best!

Noah

[DilipBarman]

Oops, it doesn't look like my reply went through. It's a free canvas K12 account that I administer. If I remove him and re-add him, will he still have access to all that he did before like his assignments? I can ask him tomorrow but don't believe he can publish/unpublish. Thanks!

[DilipBarman]

Thanks. It's a free canvas account that I administer. I can ask him or his parents tomorrow whether this is new behavior or not. I don't think he can publish and unpublish information. He's been in the class since it started in August. If I remove him and re-add him, he will still have access to all of his old assignments, right? Thanks!

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

@DilipBarman Oh! You’re using free for teacher? In that case yeah, this behavior is extremely weird, and nothing about him being an account admin would apply to free for teacher.

I recommend getting some more information tomorrow and then submitting a support ticket directly to canvas by clicking the help button on the global navigation menu. Then click report a problem and fill out the form.

I wish you the best of luck, and if you wouldn’t mind coming back and telling us what the reason was, that would be great so we can all learn something new!

And yes, if you remove him and re-add him, he should be able to re-access all of his old assignments just fine!

- Noah

[sharon_kitching]

What is the answer key in? A file? Gradescope? 

[dspiel]

Where is it the student is seeing the file? Just a guess, but Files is in the open area for viewing and it is published within a Module which also makes it viewable as a file. 

[DilipBarman]

@dspiel, I don't see it under files. I left a message but haven't heard back from the student's family yet.