Instructors can add teaching assistants, course staff, and other authorized users to their Quercus (Canvas) courses. Different course roles provide different levels of access to course materials, activities, and student information.
Note: Students registered through ACORN are automatically enrolled in Quercus. Enrolment updates may take time to appear, so instructors should allow time for the systems to synchronize rather than manually adding registered students.
Newly hired teaching assistants or other staff may also need to wait until their University account has been activated and is available in Quercus before they can be added. If a user cannot be found after their account is active, contact your divisional Quercus support team.
Before Adding People
Before adding someone to your course, determine which course role and level of access they need.
Quercus provides several roles, including Teacher, TA, Course Staff, Grader, Designer, Librarian, and Observer. The permissions associated with each role determine which course activities and information a user can access.
When adding people, consider:
- Course role: Select the role appropriate to the person’s responsibilities. Different roles provide different permissions.
- Course section: If your course has multiple sections, identify the section to which the person should be added.
- Section-specific interactions: You can limit users to interacting with others in their assigned section, where appropriate.
- Student information: Only provide access to student records, grades, and other course information when required for the person’s responsibilities.
For information about available roles and permissions, consult Quercus Course Roles and Permissions.
Adding People to Your Course
To add users to your Quercus course:
- Open your Quercus course.
- Select People from the course navigation menu.
- Select + People.
- Choose how to search for users:
- Email Address: Enter the person’s University-issued email address.
- Login ID: Enter the person’s UTORid.
- Enter the email address or identifier of the person you want to add. To add multiple users, separate entries with commas or line breaks.
- Under Role, select the appropriate course role. The default may be Student, so confirm that you have selected the intended role before proceeding.
- Under Section, select the course section to which the person should be added.
- If appropriate, select Can interact with users in their section only to limit interactions to users in the assigned section.
- Select Next.
- Review the matching user information to confirm that you have selected the correct person.
- Select Add Users to complete the process.
When adding multiple users at once, all selected users receive the same course role and section assignment. If users require different roles or sections, add them separately.
If Quercus cannot locate the intended user, check the email address or identifier and try again. If the user still cannot be found, contact your divisional Quercus support team.
Limiting Interactions to a Course Section
When adding users, the Can interact with users in their section only option can limit their interactions to members of the assigned section.
Section-specific limitations affect:
- People: Which course participants the user can see.
- Inbox: Which course participants the user can communicate with.
- Collaborations: Which participants the user can collaborate with.
- Grading: For instructors and teaching assistants, which students they can grade.
Section restrictions do not automatically restrict access to all course content. For example, Pages and Discussions are not necessarily restricted by this setting.
For detailed information, consult Canvas’s How do I limit a user to only interact with other users in the same course section?
Course Invitations and Pending Enrolments
When users are manually added to a course, Canvas may generate a course invitation that they must accept before participating.
Invitations are generally sent once the course is published and the relevant course start date has been reached. Until an invitation is accepted, the user’s enrolment may display as Pending.
If a newly added user cannot access the course, check their enrolment status and confirm that they are using the correct University account.
For detailed instructions and screenshots, consult Canvas’s How do I add users to a course?
Adding People After a Course Has Ended
Instructors may need to add teaching staff or other authorized users to a Quercus course after it has ended. For example, an instructor preparing to teach a course in a future term may need access to materials from a previous offering.
When a course has ended, the + People button may become unavailable. Depending on the course’s status and your permissions, you may be able to temporarily reopen the course, add the required users, and then restore its original participation settings.
Understanding Read-Only Course Access
Quercus courses transition to read-only access according to the University’s course lifecycle:
- One month after the end of term: The course becomes read-only for students, teaching assistants, and designers. Students can no longer submit assignments, post in discussions, or complete other action-based tasks. They also stop receiving notifications for course updates.
- One year after the end of term: The course becomes read-only for instructors. Instructors can no longer edit course materials, upload files, grade, or complete other action-based tasks.
Important: Once a course becomes read-only for instructors, they cannot use the procedure below to change participation dates and add users. Contact your divisional Quercus support team for assistance.
For additional information, consult Quercus Course Life Cycle.
Temporarily Reopening a Course
If the course has ended but remains editable by instructors, you may be able to temporarily reopen it to add users.
Important: Changing course participation dates can affect course availability and student access. Before proceeding, record whether Participation is set to Term or Course, along with any existing course participation dates. Restore these settings immediately after adding the required users.
To temporarily reopen the course:
- Open the Quercus course.
- Select Settings from the course navigation menu.
- Under Course Details, locate Participation.
- If Participation is set to Term, change it to Course.
- Enter an End date in the future to temporarily reopen the course.
- Select Update Course Details to save your changes.
- Select People from the course navigation menu.
- Follow the instructions under Adding People to Your Course to add the required users.
Restoring the Original Course Settings
After adding the users:
- Return to Settings > Course Details.
- Locate Participation.
- Restore the original participation setting. If the course previously used Term, select Term again.
- Select Update Course Details to save your changes.
- Confirm that the course’s original participation settings have been restored.
If the course previously used custom participation dates, restore those original dates rather than switching to Term.
If you cannot modify the course’s participation settings or the + People button remains unavailable, contact your divisional Quercus support team.
For additional information, consult Canvas’s How do I change the start and end dates for a course?