How to let teachers create and manage classes Follow

This article helps Hāpara administrators decide when and how to let teachers create and manage classes in Hāpara, and how to validate teacher and student accounts.

In this article:

• Create class overview
• How to enable manual class creation
• How to enable class management from the Class Info page
• Validating teachers
• Validating students
• Frequently asked questions

You can let teachers create and manage classes in two main ways: by allowing manually created classes and by enabling teacher class management on the Class Info page. These options are controlled in the Hāpara Admin Console and can be used alongside data loads/SIS syncs. Changes made on the Class Info page always take priority over data loads. You must also set up teacher and student validation so only the right accounts gain access.

Create class overview

There are two key settings that give teachers more control over their classes:

1. Allow manually created classes (teachers can create their own classes and add co-teachers and students).

2. Allow teachers to manage co-teachers and learners in existing classes from the Class Info page.

Important: If teachers or students are added via the Class Info page and a data load is later run, the Class Info page changes will take precedence. Data loads run via the Hāpara Data Loader (Manual, Sync or URL/cURL) will NOT overwrite changes made on the Class Info page.

How to enable manually created classes

How to enable manually created classes

Enabling manually created classes allows teachers to:

• Create their own classes

• Add co-teachers

• Add or remove students

They can do this without waiting for an administrator to load classes for them.

You can use manually created classes:

• As your primary class loading method, or

• Alongside other data loading options (for example, SIS sync or spreadsheets).

Note: If manually created classes are your primary method, teachers have more control but also more initial setup work. There are also some feature limitations for these classes, so consider all available data loading options before choosing this method.

Steps to enable Create Class (manually created classes):

1. In the Hāpara Admin Console, open the Class rostering menu.

2. Select Teacher managed roster.

3. In the Roster options section, switch “Allow manually created classes” to Yes.

What teachers can do in manually created classes:

• Create new classes from the Manage Classes page.

• Add or remove students and co-teachers on the Class Info page.

What teachers cannot do in manually created classes:

• No class folders are created. In Teacher Dashboard, teachers will see a “Documents” tab showing all Google Drive work shared by students, instead of class folders.

• Teachers cannot reset student passwords from the Class Info page.

• Teachers cannot email the entire class from the Class Info page.

All other functionality in Workspace, Dashboard and Highlights is the same as for classes created via data loads/SIS sync.

Validating Teachers

There are several methods of verification available, to ensure Hāpara does not sync any teachers as students or students as teachers by mistake.

We ask  technical administrators to choose from at least one of the following validation options:

• Domain or School Google Group(s) ONLY: Google Group memberships are used to verify teachers and grant access to Hāpara. When a teacher attempts to add a student to a class, Hāpara will check to ensure that the student is NOT in any teacher Google Group(s).
  
  Note: Domains with multiple schools can provide a domain Google Group containing Admins and other staff at the root level who should access ALL schools, and separate Google Groups per school containing teachers who can only access that school.
  
   
• Data Load / SIS sync ONLY: Teachers and students are loaded to Hāpara via the Data Loader either systematically via SIS sync or cURL or manually by an Administrator. Teachers can only add known teachers or students that have been processed by the Hāpara Data loader.
   
• Both Data Load AND Google Group: In this case, teachers and students are loaded by the Hāpara Data Loader, and Google Group memberships are also used to verify teachers. When a teacher attempts to add a student to a class, Hāpara will check to ensure that the student is NOT in any teacher Google Group(s).

Once Allow manually created classes is enabled, teachers will be able to create a new class from the Manage Classes page. Students and co-teachers can be added and removed on the Class Info page.

As noted above, certain features are not available with manually created classes. No class folders are created, so teachers see a Documents tab containing all Google Drive work shared with the teacher by the student in Dashboard. Teachers will also not be able to reset student passwords or email their entire class from the Class Info page. All other functionality in Workspace, Dashboard and Highlights remains the same. 

How to enable class management from the Class Info page

Teachers can add students and co-teachers to classes from the Class Info page, if enabled by the Hāpara Administrator. This is a fantastic way to empower teachers to manage their class enrollments, and lessen the time it takes administrators to manage Hāpara.

To enable the option for teacher to add co-teachers or students to a class via Class Info, an administrator must enable the Class Management feature in the Hāpara Admin Console:

Hāpara Admin Console > Home> Settings >Class Management 

These optional settings can be enabled or disabled as often as you need.

Validating students to Hāpara

A Hāpara Admin can validate student emails to Hāpara by manual load:

• Make a student spreadsheet with columns: Email, Class.
• In the email column, list all of your students' email addresses—one student per row.
• In the class column, list their class mailbox. It is ok to leave this blank if teachers manually add and removes students in Hāpara classes.
• Upload that spreadsheet via your Hāpara Admin Console.

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about this. Our team would be happy to check your class and student spreadsheets before you load them.

Frequently asked questions - FAQ

• Will this impact classes added by data load?
• How do you deactivate a class?
• Does this impact archiving?
• Can Manual Class Creation be enabled for some schools in my domain but not others?
• Can I have teachers in separate Google Groups for separate schools?
• Where should the Google Group be created?
• What should the Google Group be called?
• Who should be in the Google Group?

Will this impact classes added by data load?

Allowing teachers to create classes manually will have no impact on classes added by data load. You can still choose whether to allow teachers to add teachers or students to existing classes using the options on the Class Management page in the Hāpara Admin Console under Settings.

How do you deactivate a class?

Any teacher in a class can deactivate the class, which will remove it from Manage Classes. Classes can be reactivated if the technical administrator contacts the Hāpara Support Team.

Does this impact archiving?

When a complete archive is run at the end of a school year, manually created classes will be archived at the same time as any classes created by data load or SIS.

Can Manual Class Creation be enabled for some schools in my domain but not others?

Yes, manual class creation can be turned on at the domain level, and a Google Group added for verification, and then disabled for individual schools.

Can I have teachers in separate Google Groups for separate schools? 

Yes, you can have one Google Group at the domain level containing any staff who should have access to all schools, and then add separate Google Groups for each of your schools containing the teachers who should be able to create classes for that school. See the example below. 

Where should Google Group(s) for teacher validation be created?

Google Group(s) for teacher validation should either be:

1. Created in the student domain, eg: haparateachers@studentdomain.com OR
2. Added as an alias to a group created in the Teacher Domain, eg: haparateachers@studentdomain.com added as an alias to a Group in the teacher domain, eg: haparateachers@teacherdomain.com
    

What should Google Group(s) for teacher validation be called?

Hāpara can use a Google Group with any name you choose, as long as the group has an address within the student domain.

It can be beneficial to use a name that makes the group’s purpose easy to identify by technical administrators, eg: “haparateachers@studentdomain.com”.

Who should be in the Google Group for teacher validation?

The group should contain any accounts that require teacher access to Hāpara Dashboard. There should be NO student accounts added to any of these teacher validation groups.