Instructors often need to share part or all of their Canvas courses with other staff in their department. There are a couple of different ways you can do this.

Add Someone to Your Course

UW-Superior instructors can add any user with a UW System email address to their Canvas course. This Canvas Instructor Guide provides step by step directions about how to add users to a course via the People tool:

Canvas Instructor Guide: How do I add users to a course?

Before adding a user to your course, please consider some alternative options, such as:

• Demo your course over a screen-share in a web meeting
• Send your course design to another instructor as a course export file
• Send individual announcements, assignments, discussions, pages, and quizzes to other instructors using the Direct Share feature

These options are simple ways to share part or all of your course with other instructors. These options also insulate your courses from any unintentional changes or FERPA violations, which can be caused by adding users to your course with certain roles.

Export Your Course and Share the Export File

If you’d like to share your course design with someone else—even if they’re at another institution—you can export your course and send them the export file. This is an easy way to share your course materials without adding someone to a course where students are enrolled.

Create the Export File

1. Click Settings in the course Navigation menu.
2. Click Export Course Content.
3. At the next screen, choose between exporting the entire Course or an individual Quiz. (All Quizzes will be exported if you choose Course.)
4. Click the Create Export button.

Download the Export File

When the export is finished there will be a new download link listed on the Export Course Content page. Click the export file link to download it to your computer.

Share the Export File

You can send your course export file to other people once you’ve downloaded it. Your export file may be small enough to email to other people, or you can use a cloud storage tool like Microsoft OneDrive to share it.

If you share a Canvas course export with someone, they can use the Import Course Content function to import your export package contents into their Canvas course.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I add another user to my course as an instructor?

Use the Teacher role if you need to co-teach a course or quickly allow another user to teach your course in your absence. This role has the ability to edit the course, interact with students, and reset all course content, so please use this role with caution.

How do I add another user to my course for an official visitation?

Use the Teacher Reviewer role if you need to grant another instructor or departmental staff access to your course for purposes of a review. Teacher Reviewers have similar access to the Teacher role, but do not have permission to make changes to a course.

This is also a great option for sharing departmental master/template courses with adjunct instructors.

How do I add another user to my course so they can see all the course content but not interact with students?

Use the Interpreter or Interpreter Pre-Semester role. This role is intended for captioners, ASL interpreters and others that may need access to the materials in a course without any other interactions. Interpreters do not have the ability to create, edit, or delete course components. They are unable to see student submissions or grades.

The “Pre-Semester” version of this role can access course materials before the configured course start date.

Why won’t Canvas allow me to add another instructor to my course?

If Canvas doesn’t allow you to add an instructor to your course, it is probably because the course has concluded. However, you can still create and share an export of concluded courses by using the Export Your Course directions above.

If you need to add an instructor (from within UW System) to your concluded course, you can do so using the following steps. The steps differ depending on how the Participation dropdown box on your course Settings > Course Details page is configured. Directions for both Participation options are listed below.

If Participation is set to the Course option:

First, remove the configured course End Date using the Settings tool:

1. Click Settings in your course Navigation menu to open the Course Details page.
2. Remove any date from the End Date field and click Update Course Details.

Next, add the user to your course using the People tool:

1. Click People in your course Navigation menu to open the People page.
2. Click the +People button.
3. Select “Add user(s) by email address” and enter the instructor’s UW-Superior or UW System campus email address.
4. Select a role from the dropdown menu. We recommend the Teacher Reviewer role, because this will allow them to view the entire course without being able to make changes.
5. Click the Next button.
6. Confirm you’d like to add the listed user and click Add User if the information listed is correct.

The added person will receive a course invitation at the listed email address. You’ll need to wait for them to accept before re-entering a course end date.

Finally, once they’ve accepted their invitation to the course, return to Settings and re-enter an End Date:

1. Click Settings in your course Navigation menu to open the Course Details page.
2. Enter your preferred course end date into the End Date field and click Update Course Details.

If Participation is set to the Term option:

First, remove the configured course End Date using the Settings tool:

1. Click Settings in your course Navigation menu to open the Course Details page.
2. Change the Participation option to Course.
3. The End Date field should be empty by default. If it’s not, Remove any date from the End Date field.
4. Click Update Course Details to save your changes.

Next, add the user to your course using the People tool:

1. Click People in your course Navigation menu to open the People page.
2. Click the +People button.
3. Select “Add user(s) by email address” and enter the instructor’s UW-Superior or UW System campus email address.
4. Select a role from the dropdown menu. We recommend the Teacher Reviewer role, because this will allow them to view the entire course without being able to make changes.
5. Click the Next button.
6. Confirm you’d like to add the listed user and click Add User if the information listed is correct.

The added person will receive a course invitation at the listed email address. You’ll need to wait for them to accept before switching the course Participation setting back to Term.

Finally, once they’ve accepted their invitation to the course:

1. Click Settings in your course Navigation menu to open the Course Details page.
2. Switch the Participation setting to Term.
3. Click Update Course Details to save your changes.