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Set up roles and permissions

Schoology uses role-based permissions to manage access to system tools, courses, groups, and user data. Setting up your organization's roles and permission sets is a key foundational step during onboarding.

Before adding users, define the roles and permissions that control what each person can access and do in Schoology. This page helps you understand your options and decide what to configure.

What are roles

Roles determine a user's access level. Schoology includes 4 default roles:

Role

Typical use

System administrator

Full access to all settings, users, and data across the organization

Administrator

Manages a school building or department within the organization

Instructor

Creates and manages courses, grades assignments, and communicates with students

Student

Accesses courses, submits work, views grades

Parent

Designed for parents, guardians, and mentors. Provides view-only access to their associated children's activity, calendar, grades, and course materials without student-level submission or interaction capabilities.

When to create custom roles

Create a custom role when:

  • A user group needs more access than one default role provides but less than another, for example, a department head who manages courses but not building-level settings.

  • You want to restrict a specific permission for a subset of users, for example, preventing certain instructors from creating groups.

  • Your organization has parent or family member accounts that need limited visibility

  1. Review default roles — Confirm the 4 defaults meet most of your needs.

  2. Create custom roles — Add any roles your organization requires.

  3. Configure permissions — Adjust what each role can access (courses, groups, resources, apps).

  4. Set privacy thresholds — Control what user profile information is visible to other roles.

Complete this before importing users. Roles assigned during import can be changed individually or in bulk at any time by navigating to Tools, User Management, and then selecting Roles/Advanced.