eClass has a wide range of roles available to allow different users different sets of capabilities in courses. If you have any questions about the different roles and capabilities, please contact IST eClass Support.

Basic Roles

For regular Bear Tracks credit sections, instructors manually adding additional users  (other than students) into your course can only select from the following roles:

• Instructor: Additional instructors would have the exact same capabilities that you have. Instructors can do anything within a course, including changing the activities and grading students. Instructors can also enroll other administrative users in the course (Instructors, TAs, Non-editing TAs).
  
  
• Designer: This role is a non-instructing editor (the opposite of the Non-editing Instructor). It is intended for anyone who would be constructing and editing course content, layout, settings, etc, but who would NOT be expected to view student information, submissions, or grades. The role does not have permission to enroll other users in the course.
  
  
• Non-editing Instructors: Non-editing instructors can administer activities and grade students but can not add materials to the course. The role is commonly used in courses where local support units do the course creation for instructors.
  
  
• TA: TAs can perform all the same course design and teaching activities as Instructors. The role does not have permission to enroll other users in the course.
  
  
• Non-Editing TA: Non-editing TAs do not have the ability to upload materials to the course, nor to create learning activities (they do not have the 'Turn Editing On' button.) They are able to access the gradebook, grade activities (assignments, quizzes, etc), and view all course content.
  
  
• Auditor: Auditors have the same privileges as students in a course with the exception of access to the gradebook. This is the role to choose if you want a user to be able to view course materials and participate in activities but not receive any marks.
  
  

The following table provides an overview of these roles with their basic capabilities:

Notes:

• You should never need to enroll the students in your course - students are enrolled via a daily synchronization process which reflects changes in Bear Tracks automatically. For students who have recently enrolled, there can be up to a 48-hour lag between their Bear Tracks enrollment and their appearance in the eClass course.
• Instructors also have the ability to add guests into their courses through a different process - see the following knowledgebase article for instructions: Allowing Guests to Access Your Course. Guests have minimal privileges and usually can not enter text anywhere. They can generally see all the content in a course that a student can but cannot see any areas where students have submitted anything such as forums, chats, etc.
• Instructors needing to enroll librarians in a single course to update the Library Resources block should add them as Designers (see below for more information).

Category-Level and Admin Roles

There are a number of other roles available on eClass that allow users to access all the courses within a particular faculty or department without being explicitly enrolled in the course. These enrollments are always subject to departmental approval and can only be given out by IST eClass support system administrators and category managers. The different roles are:

• Category Managers: This role enables staff at a faculty or department level to oversee, support, and construct eClass courses for the faculty members and instructors of their area. This role can only be given out by IST eClass support with the approval of Faculty or Department heads.
  
  
• Non-credit Course Instructor: This role can do anything within a course, including changing the activities and grading students. Instructors can also enroll other administrative users in the course (Instructors, TAs, Non-editing TAs) but since their courses are not linked to Bear Tracks, they also have the capability of enroling students in their course.
  
  
• Category Question Editor/Sharer:  These roles provide the ability to share quiz questions across courses and edit questions at the category level. All the courses must reside in the same category and the role can only be assigned at a category level. The nested category structure allows the capabilities to cascade to any sub-categories and can only be assigned by IST eClass support.
  
  
• Administrative Staff: Admin Staff by default can do anything within a course, including changing the activities and grading students. The role is meant to provide a flexible option for faculties or departments who want staff to be able to assist instructors in different ways with the expectation that the capabilities will be customized at the category level. The role cannot make manual enrollments.
  
  
• DoS Support Staff: This role is assigned to Dean of Students staff who need to assist students in courses with approved accommodations such as interpretation. These users can view materials in courses and assist students, but may not alter activities, view any grades, or view the course participant list. For further information or any questions about this role, please contact the Academic Success Centre at arec@ualberta.ca.

• Tutor: Tutors can view materials in courses and assist students, but may not alter activities or view any grades. This is basically a 'Non-grading TA' role.
  
  
• Librarians: Once approved by a faculty or department, library staff can be enrolled as category librarians so that they can edit the Library Resources block and add any subject-specific links to library readings or materials to a course. The role cannot see the names of students or other course participants, cannot access any user data such as forum posts or submissions, and cannot access the gradebook.

Accessing Category Courses:

New in 2023: Once a user is enrolled in one of these roles, they can set up access to their category courses using the instructions in the article eClass Category Access.

For any questions about the approval process for these types of enrollments or the specific capabilities of any of the roles, please contact the IST eClass Support team at eclass@ualberta.ca.