TILLING THE SOIL

Via the Canvas Observer role, parents and guardians have the ability to view their student's course content (assignment due dates, assignments, course modules, etc.). When a parent or guardian creates a Canvas Observer account they have the ability to link to their student's account and follow their progress in Canvas.

A given student can have multiple Observers linked to their account, so each individual parent or guardian can have a unique Canvas Observer account, with equivalent abilities to view their student's work.

Likewise, a given Observer can be linked to multiple students from the same account.

Once a parent or guardian is linked to a student as an Observer once, that link remains for the duration of their use of the Pennsbury Canvas instance, so this does not need to be done once per course or per school year.

PLANTING AND PRUNING

In Canvas, parents and guardians function as Observers. Observers have limited permissions that allow them to see what is going on in a course without interrupting or participating in the course.

Observers can:

View and read announcements
View the calendar
View their personal inbox
Send conversation messages to the instructor and student they are observing
View the dashboard
View grades, view assignment due dates and comments, and print grades
View modules and see due dates and point values
View pages and contribute if the instructor enables the "Anyone can edit" setting
View profile pictures
View syllabus
View outcomes

Observers cannot:

Comment on announcements or discussions
Submit assignments or quizzes
View course rosters
Send conversation messages to students in the course they are not observing
Join groups
View unpublished courses
Reserve appointment slots in the Scheduler

Observer Limitations:

Observers can view the same content as the student they are observing unless the content is unpublished or restricted by locked dates.
Observers can view module content locked by prerequisites or requirements, as module progression is not measured for observers.
Observers can view assignments even if the student they are observing has not completed them unless the assignments are locked.
Each instructor can customize the links in the Course Navigation and limit the number of features that students and observers can see. Observers may or may not see links to certain features.

DIGGING DEEPER

Need more information? Check out this Canvas Guide!

Canvas Observer Guide