Category: Canvas

Adding Substitute Instructors, Faculty Evaluators, TLC Staff, and Community Ed students to Canvas classes

DO NOT attempt to add anyone to Canvas using a Student or Teacher role. Students and Instructors are automatically enrolled from SURF to your Canvas course several times a day.

It is possible to add MiraCosta College employees to your Canvas course with the Canvas TA role when appropriate – see this set of instructions. This should only be used for employees who have full permissions to edit your course and access your gradebook. Do not add users described on this page to your course as TAs.

For the roles called out below, follow the specified directions to have the user enrolled within your course with the appropriate role.

  • Faculty Evaluator: Contact Heidi Willis at (760) 795-6827 or hwillis@miracosta.edu in the Office of Instruction when you need to provide access to a peer, your chair, etc. to conduct an evaluation. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘Evaluator ‘ Canvas role. The Evaluator Canvas role has the same permissions as the student role.
  • The Learning Centers (TLC Staff)
    • STEMLC & ASI: Contact Amy Paopao at (760) 757-2121 ext. 6389 or apaopao@miracosta.edu. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘TLC Staff ‘ Canvas role.
    • Writing Center: Contact Sarah Pultz at (760) 757-2121 ext 6320 or spultz@miracosta.edu in the Writing Center. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘TLC Staff’ Canvas role.
  • Community Education Student: Contact Karen Turpin at kturpin@miracosta.edu. Include the confirmation of student enrollment through community education. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘Student Other’ Canvas role.
  • Substitute Instructors: Work with your dean to provide access to Canvas for the substitute. Approved substitute instructors are handled by your dean through the Office of Instruction’s procedures. The substitute instructor will be added on SURF and uploaded to Canvas for the period of time they are subbing. During that time, the substitute instructor will have the Teacher Canvas role .

Add a TA or other MCC Employee to Canvas

Instructors of Canvas classes can add a TA or other MiraCosta College employee to your Canvas course with the TA role.

You can not add students or instructors to your course on Canvas. Students and instructors are automatically enrolled from SURF to your Canvas course several times a day.

For Canvas access for other special cases such as faculty substitutes, faculty evaluators, TLC Staff, or community education students, please see this post.

Add a TA or other MCC Employee to Canvas

  1. Enter your Canvas course
  2. Click People on the left course menu
  3. Click the +People button at far right
  4. Select Login ID

    Add People
  5. Enter SURF ID of the user in the box.
    • You can enter one user at a time.  Example: jjulius
    • Or multiples with a comma and space between each. Example: jjulius, mparks
  6. Select the appropriate role for the user. ‍
    • Available role options are TA (see below for details on these options)
  7. Click the Next button
    • Some IDs may already be used in Canvas at other colleges. If you get a prompt about this, select the ID that is associated with MiraCosta College.
  8. Click the Add Users button
Add user from MiraCosta College

Course Roles Explained

Note: None of the following should be used for substitute instructors,faculty evaluators, TLC Staff, or community education students. See separate instructions if you need to add any of those.

Teaching Assistant (TA) Role

  • Primary use: TAs assigned to a specific class to help the instructor.
  • Permissions: TAs have permissions equivalent to the Teacher role. They have all course-level permissions, including the ability to add, edit and delete all content in a course; grade students; and edit course settings.

SensusAccess – Alternative Media Made Easy

Sensus Access Notices & Flex Workshops Recordings

Sensus Acess Logo

SensusAccess offers two ways for MiraCosta faculty, classified professionals, and students to convert all kinds of documents and files into alternative and more accessible formats:

SensusAccess is available now.

  • A website that allows anyone to upload files including Word or PPT documents, scanned images, PDFs, or web pages and generate accessible alternative types of files and media, including audio, e-books, Braille, and large print. This helps meet accessibility standards and enhance inclusion by supporting diverse preferences and needs of users.
  • A Canvas integration that automatically enables conversion of files uploaded into Canvas into alternate file and media types and languages. (This replaces functionality that was previously provided in Canvas through Ally.)

Key Features

  • Automated conversion of files into a range of alternative media and file formats
  • Remediation of inaccessible documents such as image only PDFs into accessible formats
  • Language to language translation with a high degree of accuracy

For more information on SensusAccess and its use check out the SensusAccess website and one-page Canvas LTI description.

Pope Tech and Canvas Accessibility

Pope Tech And Canvas Accesibility Flex Workshop Recordings

Pope Tech is an accessibility remediation tool available to instructors in Canvas. This tool gives instructors a quick but powerful way to check for and fix common accessibility concerns in Canvas content. Ensuring your Canvas courses are free of accessibility concerns helps support inclusion and equity for all students, and also is a requirement of MiraCosta policies as well as state and federal regulations.

MiraCosta College has two Pope Tech Canvas LMS tools:

  • Accessibility Guide – a page-by-page accessibility checker and remediation assistant for Canvas
  • Accessibility Dashboard – a course-level dashboard allowing you to review and correct accessibility issues throughout an entire Canvas course
Canvas LTI Dashboard and Accessibility Guide

Pope Tech Canvas LMS Tool Resources

Instructor Accessibility Guide: Demo for Canvas LMS

Pope Tech Detailed Guidance

Click any of the items below to view more details, including video guides, for using Pope Tech.

What Canvas elements can be tested? What does Pope Tech check for?

What Canvas elements can faculty test with Pope Tech?

Most areas where faculty use the Canvas Rich Content Editor can be tested with Pope Tech:

  • Canvas pages
  • Syllabus
  • Quiz descriptions
  • Discussion Topics
  • Assignments
  • Announcements

To test a Canvas item for accessibility concerns, activate Pope Tech by selecting the Pope Tech icon button at left of the Cancel and Save buttons while editing any of the Canvas items above. Pope Tech works even when the item is not yet published.

Pope Tech button at left of Cancel and Save buttons

What does Pope Tech check for?

  • If headers are present or skipped 
  • Flags suspicious alt text for images (contains “image of”, “image”, etc.)
  • Color contrast between text and highlighted colored-background
    (Note: doesn’t check color contrast within images)
  • If font size is readable
  • Flags non-descriptive links such as “click here”, “link”, “more”, “read more” 
  • Flags redundant links 
  • Flags tables that lack at least one header and caption.
  • Flags YouTube, Canvas embedded video and Canvas embedded audio to bring awareness media will need to be manually reviewed for captions
  • Flags potential inaccessible files that need to be manually reviewed

How do I use Pope Tech?

Using Pope Tech is simple and intuitive.

Step 1: Open Pope Tech 

To access the PopeTech Course Dashboard tool, click Pope Tech Accessibility in any Canvas course menu.

To test an individual Canvas item for accessibility concerns, activate Pope Tech by selecting the icon next to the Cancel and Save buttons on a Canvas item while using the Rich Content Editor.

Pope Tech button at left of Cancel and Save buttons

Step 2: Use Pope Tech to Locate and Fix Accessibility Issues 

When Pope Tech is activated, the Pope Tech menu appears on the right-hand side of the screen. At the top of the interface,  the number of errors and alerts will need to be addressed. 

  • Errors are accessibility errors and should be looked at for remediation.
  • Alerts are suspicious areas. Alerts may or may not be an accessibility error. The user should review these and fix if necessary.
  • Rescan can be used once errors and alerts are fixed. This will allow the user to scan the page a second time and verify that all fixes were applied correctly.

Note: Files, videos, and audio will always be listed as alerts, as these require manual review with human eyes!   

In the example below, we have 11 errors and 4 alerts.

Pope Tech Accessibility checker interface

In the Pope Tech interface, results are organized by the following categories:

  • Images and Links
  • Text and Contrast
  • Headings
  • Tables and Lists
  • Documents and Videos 

Each of the categories can be expanded to show the errors or alerts. To view the content raising an error or alert:

  1. Select the arrow displayed next to any category name. Once you expand a category, Pope Tech will display fields grouping together issues within that category. 
  2. Click any field to view detailed results and how to fix them.
  3. Click a particular result to highlight the indicated content within the Canvas editor, enabling you to fix that content.

This quick (42 second) video demonstrates the process described above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0izZNAG-BMu0026feature=youtu.beu0026ab_channel=YoussefFrancis
Video Demos: Fixing Alternative Text, Color Contrast, and Table Errors

Fixing Alternative Text

Alternative Text errors are listed in the Images and Links category of the Pope Tech tool. This video demonstrates how to fix such errors:

https://youtu.be/sHs7gQLaihs

Fixing Color Contrast

Color Contrast errors are listed in the Text and Contrast category of the Pope Tech tool. Users can fix color contrast errors by one of two methods:

  • Adjust the color in the Canvas rich text editor.
  • Adjust the contrast by using the sliders in the Pope Tech interface until the interface displays a “Pass” message.

This video demonstrates how to fix such errors:

https://youtu.be/2aDRvb-VGBA

Fixing Table Captions and Headers

Table errors are listed in the Tables and Lists area of Pope Tech. Using Pope Tech, it is very simple to add a table caption and designate whether the first row or the first column must be the header. This video demonstrates how to fix such errors:

https://youtu.be/AFPkAQ4knDw
Accessibility Issues Explained, from PopeTech

Click any link below for details about common accessibility issues, why it matters, and what to do to fix/avoid the issue.

Credit

Thanks to Tracy Schaelen of Southwestern College for originally developing content represented here, and to Liesl Boswell of the CCC Accessibility Center for some modifications and suggestions.

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