Canvas LMS Basics Guide

What is the Designer role?

In Canvas, the Designer role is used to enroll users responsible for course creation and management. In general, users with the Designer role have permissions that allow them to create and curate course content and view course usage data. However, these permissions may vary among institutions.

Other course-level user roles with varying course-level access exist in Canvas. Designers may work with Teachers (who oversee Teacher Assistants) and together they manage course content with which Students and Observers engage. For more information about course-level user permissions, view the Canvas Course Permissions PDF.

Designers may also use the Canvas Teacher app to view some course content including announcements, assignments, discussions, and Classic Quizzes.

A designer may be enrolled in a course manually by an administrator or automatically by SIS import.

Designer Role Use

Designers may create course materials, view course usage data, and access and manage all areas of a Canvas course. For example, a designer may be added to a course with the Designer role to construct a course on behalf of an instructor.

The Designer role allows a user to:

Create and modify course content
Manually add student enrollments in the course
Communicate with course participants
Access course usage reports
Monitor and moderate the participation and interactions of all enrolled users in a course

Designer Access in Canvas

By default, users with the Designer role may access all content areas of a Canvas course. However, these permissions may vary among institutions. To learn more about Designer participation in Canvas, view the Canvas Course Permissions PDF.

A Designer can:

Add and delete external applications (LTI) for a course
Add, edit, and delete assignments, Classic Quizzes, course files and pages, and all other course content
Add, edit, and delete items in a course calendar, including Scheduler appointments
Add, edit, and delete learning outcomes associated with course content
Create, view, and post to course announcements and discussions
Create and edit rubrics
Create conferences and student collaborations
Create, edit, and delete course sections and student groups
Delete and lock discussions and edit others’ discussion posts
Publish, conclude, and delete courses
Send messages to other course users and to all members of a course
View all student group pages for a course
View and comment on student submissions
View and link to question banks
View and manage student course enrollments
View usage reports for a course

A Designer cannot:

Build or edit New Quizzes
Create a Blueprint course
Change the associated course term
Generate observer pairing codes for students
Masquerade as another user in a course
Read SIS data
Set up third-party authentication for a course
Unconclude a course
Upload student enrollments via SIS imports
View and manage the enrollment of instructors, other course designers, and teacher assistants in a course
View course analytics
View course change logs
View grade audit trail
View, moderate, and edit all grades

Designer Role Limitations

Designers cannot modify availability of any of the above permissions. Only administrators can modify access to these functions.
Designers can only create, modify, and moderate content for a course they are enrolled in.
Only users with administrative permissions may import SIS data. Designers cannot import SIS data.

Canvas LMS Basics Guide

Still have a question about this topic? Ask the Community!

Ask a Question