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Roles

1. What roles can I assign?
2. What is the difference between an Enrolled user (aka Participant) and an Other user (aka Assigned user or Hidden user)?
3. What is the difference between Teacher, TA and Coordinator?
4. What is the X-ray eyes role?
5. What are the Restricted and Very restricted roles?
6. What is the difference between a Guest and a Visitor?
7. What is the Utility user role?
8. Is there any difference between a Grader with the secondary role of Editing and a Teacher?
9. What are Enrolment methods?
10. Does it make any difference whether a user's Enrolment method is Self, Manual or Auto?
11. So what is the Enrolment method of Guest access?
12. What role information is taken from the Shnaton and Minhal Talmidim?
13. I'm trying to assign a role. Why do I get No users match?



Note: Much of the material in this page is unique to HUJI Moodle, including:
    • Roles are divided into Primary roles and Secondary roles.
    • Primary roles are divided into Enrollable roles and Other roles
    • One cannot assign more than one Primary role to a user
    • One can assign a Secondary role only to a user who already has a Primary role
    This is achieved as follows: Only Enrollable roles can be selected in the Enrol users popup (on the Enrolled users page); Only Other roles can be selected in the Assign roles popup (on the Other users page). Users who already have a Primary role are shown in both popups but cannot be given another role. (Either Enrolled or Assigned is shown, depending on whether the user has an Enrollable or Other role). The assignroles.svg (Assign roles) buttons in the Enrolled users and Other users pages show only Secondary roles
  2. All Other users and Secondary roles listed below
  3. Enrolment method of Auto. (Not the standard Moodle Enrolment method of the same name)
  4. Option to restrict Guest access to authenticated users and/or a period of time
  5. Automatic unenrolment of self-enrolled students
  6. Colored asterisk marking self- and manually-enrolled users



What roles can I assign?
  • Primary roles
    • Enrolled users (aka Participants)
      • Teacher: Can edit the course, manage users, and grade students
      • TA: Same as Teacher
      • Student: Can participate in activities
      • Grader: Can grade students
    • Other users (aka Assigned users, non-Participants or Hidden users)
      • Coordinator: Same as Teacher
      • Secretary: Can enrol/unenrol users, export grades and post to the News forum
      • Colleague: Similar to a Guest but can view also hidden content
      • Visitor: Similar to a Guest. Useful if Guest access is disabled
      • Supervisor: Available in user context.
  • Secondary roles
    • Restricted: Can see only ID (aka Mispar Zehut) of users
    • Very restricted: Can see only Moodle ID number of users
    • X-ray eyes: Can also view hidden content
    • Editing: Can also edit the course
    • Grading: Can also grade students
    • Utility user: Useful for giving users additional capabilities
    • Tsar: Marks the user as Tsar
    • Extension*: Available in EXAM Moodle. See here and here
    • On hold: Available in EXAM Moodle. See here
    • Mentor and Supermentor: Available in courses that support the Pinkas. Can be assigned at group level See here
    • Not privileged: Loses all privileges of a Teacher over a Student

A user cannot have more than one Primary role in a course.
Users can be enrolled (using the Enrol users popup) on the Enrolled users page and assigned other primary roles (using the Assign roles popup) on the Other users page.
Enrolled users can be assigned a secondary role on the Enrolled users page, and other users can be assigned a secondary role on the Other users page, both using the assignroles.svg (Assign roles) buttons.
In the Enrol users and Assign roles popups, a user who already has a Primary role is marked as Enrolled or Assigned (depending on whether he is an Enrolled or Other user) and cannot be given another role.
One can Switch role only to a Primary role



What is the difference between an Enrolled user (aka Participant) and an Other user (aka Assigned user or Hidden user)?
An Enrolled user is considered to be a course Participant i.e. he appears in the list of Participants and in menus of participants (e.g. in the Reports log). He can be a member of a Group and can be subscribed to forums. Only a Participant (Teacher, TA or Grader) receives Notifications and can be a Marker in an Assignment (when Marking workflow is used).



What is the difference between Teacher, TA and Coordinator?
There is no difference between a Teacher and a TA (except that a TA can't assign or override the role of Teacher). A Coordinator has similar capabilities to a Teacher or TA but is not a course Participant.



What is the X-ray eyes role?
A user with the additional role of X-ray eyes can access the course even if it is not available and can access activities, resources and blocks even if they are hidden. It can usefully be assigned at the level of an activity, resource or block. It is especially useful in combination with Test users to test a course before it is available.



What are the Restricted and Very restricted roles?
Unlike most of the other roles, these roles revoke capabilities rather than grant them. A user with one of these secondary roles sees only ID number (Mispar Zehut) or Moodle ID respectively. He cannot see first and last names. Email addresses and links to the messaging system are also not shown. It can be useful to grant one of these roles to a Grader. It is not entirely bulletproof: If the user has access to another course with the same participants, in which he is not restricted, he can compare ID numbers or Moodle IDs.



What is the difference between a Guest and a Visitor?
There is no difference in capabilities. If Guest access is disabled, a particular user can be given access by assigning him the role of Visitor



What is the Utility user role?
In fact, there are several Utility user roles.
It is possible to adjust the capabilities of roles but not of individual users. Occasionally it may be necessary to grant just one, or a few users, an extra capability. The only way to do this is to grant the capability to one of the utility roles and assign the user/s that utility role.



Is there any difference between a Grader with the secondary role of Editing and a Teacher?
Only a Teacher (or TA or Coordinator) can:
  • Manage users (i.e. enrol/unenrol users, assign/unassign other primary and secondary roles, add/delete Group members and manage Enrolment methods and Groups)
  • Backup and Restore (and Import and Copy from Moodle)
  • Edit a student's submission and manage Marking workflow in the Assignment
  • Delete, submit or unsubmit attempts in the Quiz
  • Delete users' comments (in the Assignment, Database, Glossary and Wiki activities and in the Comments block)
  • Export grades to the GR grading system (currently, in CSE courses only)



What are Enrolment methods?
The Enrolment method is relevant to Enrolled users only. It can can be:
  • Self: The user enrolled himself as a Student
  • Manual: The user was enrolled by a Teacher (or TA or Coordinator)
  • Auto: The user is listed in the Shnaton (Teacher or TA) or by Minhal Talmidim (Student)
If a user's Enrolment method is Self or Manual, it is automatically changed to Auto when the user is added to the Shnaton or Minhal Talimidim. If he is deleted from the Shnaton, he is automatically unenrolled (even if his original Enrolment method was Self or Manual).



Does it make any difference whether a user's Enrolment method is Self, Manual or Auto?
A Student whose Enrolment method is Manual or Self is marked with a red or green asterisk, respectively, in the Participants page, and the Assignment and Quiz report pages.
Likewise, a Teacher or TA whose Enrolment method is Manual is marked with a green asterisk on the Participants page.
A Student whose Enrolment method is Self, is automatically unenrolled on the End date of the Enrolment method of type Self enrolment (Student) - by default four weeks after the start of the course.
The Warning block warns privileged users and self-enrolled Students appropriately.



So what is the Enrolment method of Guest access?
On the Enrolment methods page, in addition to the Self, Manual and Auto methods, Guest access is listed. It is not a true Enrolment method. A user who is accessing the course but does not have a role in it can be considered to have a temporary role of Guest. It can be restricted to Authenticated users only and/or to a particular period of time and/or by password.
In course listings, icons indicate whether Guest access is restricted to Authenticated users and/or by password.
By default Guest access is enabled only during the four weeks of the course.
The Warning block warns privileged users and Guests appropriately.



What role information is taken from the Shnaton and Minhal Talmidim?
A Moodle course is created for every course listed in the Shnaton. However, on personal request, Shnaton courses may bw effectively combined or split into several Moodle courses as follows:
  • Sister courses: If a course is a Sister, students are, optionally, redirected to its associated Base course.
  • Kid courses: A Moodle course is created for each, or some, of the Shiur or Targil or Lab groups listed in the Shnaton (or for each semester in the case of a multi-semester course). The name of the teacher is appended to the name of the course. The Kid courses are instead of, or in addition to, the Parent course.
The following are enrolled automatically (with Enrolment method of Auto):
  • A user listed as the teacher of a course in the Shnaton, or of a group in the case of Kid courses, is enrolled as a Teacher or TA depending on whether he is listed as the teacher of anything other than, or only a, Targil group.
  • Students registered to a Sister course are enrolled also to its associated Base course.
  • Students registered to a Shiur, Targil or Lab group, or registered in a particular semester, are enrolled also to the associated Kid course.



I'm trying to assign a role. Why do I get No users match?
Some possibilities:
  • The user does not have an active Kod Ishi
  • The user does not yet exist in (the current instance of) Moodle. If so, search by full (8- or 9-digit) Mispar Zehut or full email address.
    Note: Any of the user's email addresses known to Maarachot Meida can be used.
  • You are trying to a assign a secondary role (at category/block/module level) to a user who does not have a primary role