Roles and permissions in a Brightspace course or organization determine the permissions of what users can or cannot do.
Teaching roles share a base set of permissions for Brightspace tools. Depending on the role assigned, they will have extra permissions for other tools. Roles are only visible in the Classlist, and only visible for users with a teaching role in a course; students cannot see who has which teaching role.
In general, the Course Manager is responsible for the course and is contacted for changes needed in Brightspace; this is also the only role that has the ability to enroll other staff into teaching roles in a course. An Instructor might be responsible for the entire course or only for parts (e.g. one of many instructors) and has similar permissions as a Course Manager, with the limitation of not being able to enroll teaching roles into a course.
If you are registered in Osiris as the Contact Person (Contactpersoon) you will be automatically registered in Brightspace as the Course Manager of a course. If you are registered in Osiris as an Instructor (Docent), you will automatically be given the Instructor role in Brightspace. If the Instructor role was assigned in a Brightspace course based on the Osiris registration, it is possible to manually upgrade this in Brightspace to the Course Manager role. If roles that were automatically assigned based on Osiris registration are downgraded or unenrolled from Brightspace courses, they will be reinstated to the previously assigned role the following night. If you are enrolled in a Brightspace course you do not belong in, and you keep on getting re-enrolled after being removed from the Brightspace course, please contact your Faculty contact person or Programme Coordinator to have this corrected in Osiris. For more information visit the How to get access to your course page on the support site.
At the bottom of the page you can find a full description and table of roles and permissions available.
You can add someone to your course with a specific role, or you can change a user’s role in your course:
- Go to Course Admin and click on Classlist.
- Select the user whose role you want to change by clicking on the checkbox.
- Navigate to the top of the classlist; click on Enrollment.
- Select the appropriate role from the New Role drop-down menu and click on Save.
Course roles available in Brightspace:
The Course Manager is the leader of the course, and ultimately responsible for all content, grades and student experience.
An Instructor is a co-lecturer who is also responsible for content, grading and the student experience. The Instructor has the same rights as the Course Manager, except they cannot assign teaching roles.
The role Teaching Assistant with grade access is used for Bachelor or Master students assisting in a course (Student Assistant). This role can access grading and content. This role however cannot email or assign teaching roles.
The Teaching Assistant role is used for Bachelor or Master students assisting in a course (Student Assistant). Contrary to the role Teaching Assistant with grade access, this role cannot access any grades: neither enter them, nor alter them. They do not have access to Class Progress, email and cannot assign teaching roles.
Students are the participants in the course who can complete quizzes and assignments, and then be graded for their performance in these assessments. They cannot edit course content and cannot view other course participants’ grades. Teaching staff can also be enrolled in courses as students for training purposes.
This role is usually assigned to staff and students who need access to courses without being able to interact with any of the content. This means that they can see content items, cannot be enrolled in groups, participate and see discussions/assignments/quizzes/etc. This role is also not included in statistics or Class Progress tool, they also cannot email from the course.
This role has the same permissions as the Course Manager, except for access to Class Progress. People with this role get automatic access to all courses within the faculty and are not visible to students and teaching roles. This role will only by assigned upon request from the head of Education and Student Affairs of the faculty.
In general, this role is not suitable for people that also need a regular Course Manager or Instructor access in Brightspace courses of their faculty that do not originate from Osiris as they will lose the Course Manager / Instructor role periodically. If a courses is registered in Osiris and one is registered there as an instructor, this role will carry over to Brightspace nightly.
The following table gives a summary of the roles and permissions in Brightspace:
| Course Manager | Instructor | TA with grade access | Teaching Assistant | Student | Read Only | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enroll Teaching roles | ✓ | x | x | x | – | – |
| Enroll Student/Read Only role | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| Change Course Offering information | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | x | x |
| Create/edit/delete Announcements | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | x | x |
| Create/edit/delete Content | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | x | x |
| Can add/modify grades in the Gradebook | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | x | x | x |
| Create/modify/delete Groups | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | x | x |
| Grade Assignments (with/without) Rubrics | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | x | x |
| Access the Classlist | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | x | x |
| Add/remove students in the Classlist | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | x | x |
| Email Classlist | ✓ | ✓ | x | x | x | x |
| Email course Groups | ✓ | ✓ | x | x | ✓ | x |
| Access Class Progress | ✓ | ✓ | x | x | – | x |
| Participate in Quizzes/ Discussions/ Groups | x | x | x | x | ✓ | x |