Security and access control for roles which have access to our students’ assessments and grades are of the utmost importance to the Learning and Teaching Systems team (LATS). Accordingly, LATS has an annual audit process which includes reviewing and renewing approval for all roles with elevated permissions across Canvas, UTS Open, and REVIEW.

From December 2023 the process for the renewal of access in 2024 will move to an individually-submitted online form to make it easier for staff to submit, and for ADTLs to approve a faculty’s access requests. The change will also streamline storage and reporting for audit purposes, and will be separated into two phases.

Phase one: Bulk approval

In mid December 2023 we will contact ADTLs, providing them with a list of staff in their faculty who currently have the FA and GFA role, due annually for expiry after January 31 2024. In the email, they will receive a link to the online form so they can share it with those who require the extension of their access for another year, until January 2025.  New staff members will be able to use the same form to request the FA and GFA roles for the first time.

Faculty staff will have from December 15th 2023 until January 14th 2024 to submit the form for bulk approval.

On January 15th 2024, ADTLs will receive another email from the Learning and Teaching Systems team. The subject of the email will be “Approval of Faculty Admin and Grade Faculty Admin roles in Canvas for 2024”.

Attached to this email will be a spreadsheet listing all of the form submission requests made by staff in their faculty to date.

We will ask ADTLs to update the spreadsheet to approve each individual request by entering YES under the “Approve” column, and return the form to us within two weeks. Please note, staff whose renewal approval is not received will have their access revoked after January 31, 2024, automatically.
Requests can be disapproved by stating NO in the “Approve” column cell.

Phase two: Ad hoc approval

After January 15th 2024, any new request for FA and GFA will automatically generate an email to ADTLs.

The subject of the email will be “New request for Faculty Admin and Grade Faculty Admin roles in Canvas for 2024”. Attached to this email will be a list of all the form submission requests made by staff in their faculty to date, including those previously approved.
New requests will be identifiable by having a blank cell in the “Approve” column list.

Important: Staff who are studying as a student in Canvas

Please note that due to the sensitive data accessible to FA and GFA roles, staff who are studying as a student in Canvas will not be granted elevated access to any Faculty or School in which they are studying, within 6 months before or after their planned or completed study.

The form includes information about the responsibilities and obligations of staff in the use of these roles, the auditability of their actions, and questions to enable them to submit information about their study plans.

For those staff we will highlight the column related to the below question if the answer is Yes.
“Current/Recent student at UTS, or UTS College?”