What are course sites?

A course site is an online space for a course. Each course site is associated with an academic term, and instructors who are assigned to rosters in the Student Information System (SIS) may add the rosters to their sites.

Course sites are created by instructors (i.e., course sites are not automatically created) each semester.

Instructors may customize the suite of tools used in their site to give students access to course materials, and encourage students to interact and engage with course content and each other.

Course Site Features

Academic Terms

Each course site is associated with a specific academic term, e.g., 2021 Fall.  Course sites are grouped by term under My Sites, and you can search for sites by term in Worksite Setup.

Rosters

When an instructor is assigned to a course roster in SIS, the roster will be displayed to them during the site creation process. For more information about creating sites, see What is Site Builder?

When an official course roster is added to a site:

  • Student enrollment in the site is automatically updated as students add and drop the course.
  • Official instructors and teaching assistants for a roster in SIS can view student photos in the site's Roster tool.
  • Instructors who have permission to enter grades in SIS are able to export final grades from the Gradebook or Gradebook Classic tool to SIS.

Roles

A participant's role in a site controls their permissions. The available roles in a course site are:

  • Instructor: Instructors have full permissions throughout the site, including the ability to delete the entire site. Instructors can read, revise, delete, and add both content and participants to a site. We recommend having only one individual in the Instructor role to avoid unintended site deletion by others.
  • Secondary Instructor: Secondary Instructors have similar permissions to Instructors: they can read, revise, and add both content and participants to a site, but cannot delete the site.
  • Teaching Assistant: Teaching Assistants can read, add, and revise most content in the site.
  • Student: Students can read content, and add content to a site where appropriate.
  • Waitlisted Student: Waitlisted Students are typically added to a course site via Waiting List rosters, which give these students temporary access to the site through the Add/Drop period. Waitlisted Students have the same permissions as Students.