6.2.1. Planning Course Staff#

You can designate a team of people to help you run your course.

You add staff members in Studio. For more information, see Adding Course Team Members in Studio.

6.2.1.1. About Page Biography Guidelines#

Staff biographies for the course About page must include the following information.

  • Name

  • Title

  • Email address

  • Biography (1-2 paragraphs)

  • Image

Note

The instructor’s image must meet the following requirements.
  • Resolution of 110 x 110 pixels

  • Under 256 KB in size

  • .gif, .jpg, or .png file type

Additionally, biographies can optionally include the following information.

  • Facebook, Twitter, and blog URLs

  • List of major works

For information about how to enter this information in your course About page, see Creating a Course About Page in Studio.

6.2.1.2. Course Team Roles#

To give team members access to Studio, the instructor dashboard in the LMS, and Insights, you assign one of these course team roles to them.

  • Staff

  • Limited Staff

  • Admin

You can assign these privileged roles when you work in either the LMS or Studio. The people who have these roles can work on your course in Studio, the LMS, and Insights. For more information about assigning roles to team members in Studio, see Add Course Team Members.

You can also designate teams of people to beta test your course or to moderate and manage its discussions by assigning other roles in the LMS. Beta testers and discussion team members must be enrolled in your course, but they do not need to have the Staff or Admin role. For more information, see Beta Testing a Course and Assigning Discussion Moderation Roles.

For more information about how to add course team members, see Adding Course Team Members in Studio.

6.2.1.3. Administrative Team Roles#

To provide access to features on the instructor dashboard in the LMS, you can assign the Staff role or the Admin role to course team members.

Team members who have either of these roles can work on your course in Studio immediately, and can also use the LMS and Insights. For more information about assigning roles while you run your course, see Planning Course Staff.

You can also designate teams of people to beta test your course and to moderate and manage its discussions by assigning other LMS roles. The beta testers and discussion administrators must be enrolled in your course, but they do not need to have Staff or Admin access. For more information, see Beta Testing a Course and Assigning Discussion Moderation Roles.

For more information about how to add course team members, see Adding Course Team Members in Studio.

6.2.1.3.1. The Staff Role#

Course team members who have the Staff role can complete the following tasks.

  • View the course before the course start date.

  • Enroll and unenroll learners.

  • Access and modify grades for individual learners. For example, users with the Staff role can reset an individual learner’s attempt to answer a question.

  • See course HTML errors.

  • Send email messages to course participants.

  • Activate course certificates.

6.2.1.3.2. The Limited Staff Role#

Course team members who have the Limited Staff role can do all of the Staff tasks but without content editing permissions. This role has no access to Studio.

6.2.1.3.3. The Admin Role#

Course team members who have the Admin role can complete all the tasks that team members who have the Staff role can complete. In addition, they can complete the following tasks.

  • Access and modify grades for all learners in a course. For example, users with the Admin role can reset all learners’ attempts to answer a question.

  • Add team members to, and remove them from, the Staff role.

  • Add team members to, and remove them from, the Admin role.

  • Add and remove team members as beta testers.

  • Add team members to, and remove them from, the Discussion Admin or Discussion Moderator role.

  • Add enrolled learners to, and remove them from, the Community TA or Group Community TA role.

    Note

    To moderate course discussions, team members must explicitly be added to a discussion moderation role in addition to having the course team Staff or Admin role. For more information, see Assigning Discussion Moderation Roles.