Développement:Rôles

Remarque : cet article est en cours de rédaction. N'hésitez pas à le compléter. Veuillez utiliser la page de discussion pour vos recommandations et suggestions d'améliorations.

Moodle1.7

Roles et capacités dans Moodle à partir de la version 1.7.

Définitions

Un rôle identifie le statut d'un utilisateur dans un certain contexte. Par exemple : Enseignant, Etudiant et Modérateur de forum sont des exemples de rôles.

Une capacité est la description d'une fonctionnalité particulière de Moodle. Les capacités peuvent être associées aux rôles. Par exemple, mod/forum:replypost est une capacité.

Une permission est une certaine valeur qui définit l'usage d'une certaine capacité par un rôle donné. Par exemple, autoriser ou empêcher.

Un contexte est un "endroit" dans Moodle, tel qu'un cours, un module d'activité, un bloc etc.

Le système antérieur de gestion des droits

Dans les versions antérieures à la v1.7, Moodle utilisait un ensemble de rôles prédéfinis c'est-à-dire, l'administrateur primaire, les administrateurs délégués, les chargés de cours, les enseignants éditeurs, les enseignants non éditeurs, les étudiants, et les invités. Pour chacun des rôles, les possibilités d'usage des différentes fonctionnalités de Moodle étaient fixées à l'avance par la programmation. Par exemple, le rôle étudiant permettait à un utilisateur de poster un devoir, mais pas de consulter le travail d'un autre utilisateur. Dans cette architecture, la définition des possibilités des utilisateurs était rigide. Si nous voulions faire en sorte qu'un étudiant particulier ou un certain groupe puisse consulter des devoirs dans un certain cours, nous étions obligé de lui attribuer un rôle d'enseignant dans ce cours, lui libérant peut-être un jeu de prérogatives bien trop étendu.

Le nouveau système de rôles et capacités

A partir de la version v1.7, Moodle introduit un nouveau système de rôles et de capacités.

Les rôles ont deux fonctions premières :

définir une liste de permissions - la définition d'un rôle est commune à tous les contextes, mais ses permissions peuvent être altérées localement par un système de court-circuit.
remplacer l'ancien système d'inscription - l'assignation d'un rôle dans un contexte de cours est très similaire à l'ancienne procédure d'inscription.

Ce nouveau système permet à des utilisateurs autorisés de créer des rôles en nombre non limité (un enseignant par exemple).

Un rôle est une liste de permissions attribuées à chacun des actions connues dans Moodle (par exemple, supprimer une discussion, ajouter une activité, etc.)

Les rôles peuvent être attribués à des utilisateurs dans un certain contexte (par exemple assigner Fred comme enseignant d'un certain cours).

Voici la liste des contextes possibles, listés du plus général au plus spécifique.

CONTEXT_SYSTEM -- l'intégralité du site
CONTEXT_PERSONAL -- vous-même (l'utilisateur courant)
CONTEXT_USER -- un utilisateur particulier
CONTEXT_COURSECAT -- une catégorie de cours
CONTEXT_COURSE -- un cours
CONTEXT_GROUP -- un groupe
CONTEXT_MODULE -- un module d'activités
CONTEXT_BLOCK -- un bloc

Diagramme des contextes dans Moodle 1.8, basé sur la discussion text diagram by Martin Dougiamas. Clicker sur le diagramme pour une vue plus détaillée.

Un utilisateur autorisé pourra attribuer un nombre de rôles arbitraire a chacun des utilisateurs connus dans un contexte donné, et ce pour chacun des contextes.

Chaque capacité peut recevoir une des quatre valeurs de permissions :

CAP_INHERIT : hérite de la permission du contexte supérieur
CAP_ALLOW : autorise l'usage (pour l'instant)
CAP_PREVENT : empèche l'activation de la capacité
CAP_PROHIBIT : interdit toute réouverture plus locale du droit à l'usage

Si aucune permission n'est définit pour une certaine capacité, alors la valeur de permission pour cette capacité est héritée du premier contexte immédiatement supérieur. Si une capacité se voyait attribuer plusieurs valeurs de permissions dans des contextes distincts, alors nous parlons de surcharge de permission par le contexte le plus local.

Il est possible que, par le cumul des rôles, des permissions se trouvent en contradiction pour une capacité donnée. Ceci est résolu par l'application de la règle qui dit que le contexte le plus local l'emporte toujours, sauf si une règle d'interdiction est rencontrée à un niveau supérieur.

Par exemple, Marc est étudiant (rôle) dans un certain cours (contexte), ce qui lui permet d'écrire sur un WiKi. Mais Marc est aussi associé à un rôle Visiteur dans un contexte de module d'activité (pour un certain WiKi) qui l'empêche une écriture (lecture seule) dans ce WiKi. De ce fait, pour ce WiKi particulier, Marc ne pourra effectivement pas écrire quoi que ce soit dans ce WiKi car l'empéchement stipulé dans le contexte très localisé du module d'activité l'emporte.

Si nous définissons une INTERDICTION sur une capacité, cela signifie que cette capacité ne pourra plus être autorisée par un quelconque contexte inférieur. L'interdiction gagne toujours. Par exemple, Jeff est associé à un rôle spécialement constitué pour des étudiants perturbateurs qui interdit toute écriture dans les forums (dans le contexte très général du site), mais dispose d'une ancienne affecation à un rôle de Facilitateur dans le "Forum de Sciences" du cours "Sciences et Mathématiques 101". Comme la règle d'interdiction prévaut, Jeff nepourra pas écrire dans le forum "Science forum" après sa mise à l'écart.

Autorisation et empêchement s'annullent lorsqu'ils sont applicables à la même capacité dans le même contexte. Si une telle collision survient, c'est la permission du contexte immédiatement supérieur qui est applicable.

Ceci paraît plus complexe qu'à l'usage en réalité. L'effet produit est un système très souple dans l'adaptation aux règles de gestion locales.

Mise à jour à partir d'une version 1.6

Une mise à jour "douce" conduit de la 1.6 à la 1.7. Les rôles existant dans l'ancien modèle(admin, enseignant, étudiant, etc), et les capacités statiques correspondantes sont automatiquement réencodées. Ceci est obtenu par la création de rôles prédéfinis (NdT : rôles dits "legacy" - "d'origine" en traduction littérale) au niveau site er cours, puis par la réassignation des utilisateurs préexistants à ces nouveaux rôles. Les rôles par défaut ont un jeu de permissions prédfinies pour un ensemble prédéfini de capacités, afin de produire un statut d'utilisateur conforme à ce qu'il était en 1.6. Sans aucune modification, Moodle réagira exactement de la même façon avant et après la mise à jour.

Administrateurs

Les administrateurs se voient assignés le rôle "legacy" admin (Administrateur) du contexte site.

Responsables de cours

Les responsables de cours se voient assignés le rôle "legacy" course creator (Responsable de cours) du contexte site.

Enseignants

Les enseignants se voient assignés le rôle "legacy" teacher (Enseignant) ou le rôle "Enseignant sans édition" dans tous les cours où ils avaient ce rôle.

Etudiants

Les étudiants se voient assignés le rôle "legacy" student (Etudiant) dans tous les cours où ils étaient inscrits.

Invités

Il existe un seul et unique utilisateur non associé à un rôle du contexte site. Un rôle invité du contexte cours sera attribué à cet utilisateur pour chaque cours qui autorise l'entrée des invités. Le contrôle de l'accès invité dans un cours passe de trois à seulement deux options (les invités doivent fournir la clef - accès oui/non). Ce réglage impose la fourniture d'une clef de cours pour les invités.

Capacités

Vous trouverez ici une liste explicitée des capacités (non encore exhaustive). Il importe que les noms de capacité soient uniques.

Capacités du noyau

Toutes les capacités liées à des fonctionnalités du noyau de Moodle commencent par le préfixe 'moodle/'. Le mot qui suit désigne le type de capacité, et le dernier désigne le nom de la capacité elle-même. Les capacités du noyau de Moodle sont définies dans le fichier lib/db/access.php.

moodle/legacy:guest - Les capcités "legacy" existent pour la transition entre l'ancien schéma de rôles et le nouveau schéma de la version 1.7.
moodle/legacy:student
moodle/legacy:teacher
moodle/legacy:editingteacher
moodle/legacy:coursecreator
moodle/legacy:admin
moodle/site:doanything - une capacité spéciale, pour les administrateurs uniquement, qui surcharge la TOTALITE des autres capacités.
moodle/site:config - applicable dans admin/index.php et config.php (elle sera peut-être subdivisée dans l'avenir) : 1)admin/config.php 2)admin/configure.php 3)blocks/admin/block_admin.php load_content_for_site()
moodle/site:readallmessages - capacité de lire tous les messages et les historiques
moodle/site:approvecourse - capacité d'approuvé un cours en attente (demande de cours)
moodle/site:manageblocks - capacité d'ajouter/supprimer/modifier des blocs existants.(contextes site et cours seulement) : 1)_add_edit_controls moodleblock.class.php
moodle/site:backup - capacité de sauvegarder un cours : 1)course/category.php 2)block_admin.php
moodle/site:restore - capacité de restaurer un cours à partir de ce contexte : 1)course/category.php 2)block_admin.php
moodle/site:import - capacité d'importer un cours dans ce contexte : 1)block_admin.php
moodle/site:accessallgroups - capacité d'accéder à tous les groupes, même si l'utilisateur courant n'en fait pas partie.
moodle/site:accessdb - capacité d'accéder directement à la base de données (phpmyadmin).
moodle/site:viewfullnames - capacité de voir les noms complets des autres utilisateurs.
moodle/site:viewparticipants - capacité de voir la liste des participants.
moodle/site:viewreports - capacité de voir les rapports de site/cours.
moodle/site:trustcontent - capacité d'entrer du texte non filtré et de sauter le nettoyage des chaines de caractères dans certains cas.
moodle/site:uploadusers - capacité de charger et mettre à jour des utilisateurs à partir de fichiers texte; moodle/role:assign cette capacité est de plus requise pour pouvoir enregistrer les utilisateurs à des cours.
moodle/blog:view - lire les blogs (dans les contextes site ou cours)
moodle/blog:create - capacité de poster dans les blogs (à un niveau site seulement)
moodle/blog:manageofficialtags - capacité de créeer/supprimer des marqueurs officiels que les autres utilisateurs peuvent utiliser dans les blogs (niveau site seulement)
moodle/blog:managepersonaltags - capacité de supprimer de marqueurs personnalisés que les autres utilisateurs pouvaient utiliser (niveau site seulement) Note : les utilisateurs peuvent toujours ajouter des marqueurs personnalisés. Cette capacité ne devrait pas être permise par défaut pour les étudiants.
moodle/blog:manageentries - capacité de modifier/supprimer des entrées de blog (niveau site seulement)
moodle/course:setcurrentsection - mark course section
moodle/course:create - create courses : 1)course/edit.php 2)course/category.php 3)course/index.php
moodle/course:delete - create courses : 1)course/category.php
moodle/course:update - update course settings
moodle/course:view - can use this to find participants
moodle/course:viewparticipants - allows a user to view participant list
moodle/course:viewscales - view scales (i.e. in a help window?) : 1)course/scales.php
moodle/course:manageactivities - adding/removing/editing activities and resources (don't think it makes any sense to split these)
moodle/course:managescales - add, delete, edit scales, move scales up and down : 1)blocks/block_admin.php 2)course/scales.php
moodle/course:managegroups - managing groups, add, edit, delete : 1)course/groups.php 2)course/group.php
moodle/course:managefiles - manage course files and folders
moodle/course:managequestions - manage course questions
moodle/course:managemetacourse - manage child courses in metacourse
moodle/course:reset - able to reset the course
moodle/course:useremail - Can use the enable/disable email stuff
moodle/course:visibility - hide/show courses : 1)course/category.php
moodle/course:viewhiddencourses - see hidden courses
moodle/course:activityvisibility - hide/show activities within a course
moodle/course:viewhiddenactivities - able to see activities that have been hidden
moodle/course:sectionvisibility - hide/show sections
moodle/course:viewhiddensections - view hidden sections
moodle/course:viewcoursegrades - views all grades in course
moodle/course:viewhiddenuserfields - view all hidden user fields
moodle/course:managegrades - manages grades settings in course
moodle/category:create - create category : 1)course/index.php
moodle/category:delete - delete category : 1)course/index.php
moodle/category:update - update category settings (sort and rename) this is currently an admin capability : 1)course/category.php
moodle/category:visibility - hide/show categories : 1)course/index.php
moodle/user:viewusergrades - view your own, or other user's grades (with specified context)
moodle/user:create - create user : 1) user/edit.php
moodle/user:delete - delete user : 1) admin/user.php

moodle/user:readuserblogs - read blog entries

moodle/user:update - update user settings : 1) user/edit.php
moodle/user:viewdetails - view personally-identifying user details (e.g. name, photo).
moodle/user:viewhiddendetails - view user details marked as "hidden"
moodle/calendar:manageownentries - create/edit/delete
moodle/calendar:manageentries - create/edit/delete
moodle/role:assign - assign roles to users
moodle/role:override - can override role capabilities (depending on context)
moodle/role:manage - create/edit/delete roles, set capability permissions for each role
moodle/role:unassignself - unassign yourself from your own roles
moodle/role:viewhiddenassigns - view role assignments that have been marked as hidden
moodle/question:import - imports questions (course level?) - Yes, question permissions currently need to be course-level.--Tim Hunt
moodle/question:export - exports questions (course level?)
moodle/question:managecateory - add/delete/edit question categories (course level?)
moodle/question:manage - add/edit/delete a question (course level)

User-level Capabilities

moodle/user:readuserposts -read individual user posts on profile page (parent?)
moodle/user:readuserblogs -read individual user blogs on profile page (parent?)
moodle/user:viewuseractivitiesreport-read individual activity report on profile page (parent?)
moodle/user:editprofile - edit profile (normally used in CONTEXT_USERID and CONTEXT_SYSTEM)

Module-level Capabilities

The capabilities are cached into a database table when a module is installed or updated. Whenever the capability definitions are updated, the module version number should be bumped up so that the database table can be updated.

The naming convention for capabilities that are specific to modules and blocks is 'mod/mod_name:capability'. The part before the colon is the full path to the module in the Moodle code. The module capabilities are defined in mod/mod_name/db/access.php.

Assignment
1. mod/assignment:view- reading the assignment description
2. mod/assignment:submit - turn assignment in
3. mod/assignment:grade - grading, viewing of list of submitted assignments
Chat
1. mod/chat:chat - allows a user to participate in this chat
2. mod/chat:readlog - allows a user to read past chat session logs
3. mod/chat:deletelog - allows a user to delete past chat logs
Choice
1. mod/choice:choose - make a choice
2. mod/choice:readresponses - read all responses
3. mod/choice:deleteresponses - deletes all responses
4. mod/choice:downloadresponses - download responses
Database
1. mod/data:viewentry - reads other people's entry
2. mod/data:writeentry - add / edit and delete (own) entries
3. mod/data:managetemplates - add, delete, edit fields and templates
4. mod/data:manageentries - edit/delete all entries
5. mod/data:comment - comment
6. mod/data:managecomments - edit/delete all comments
7. mod/data:rate - rate an entry
8. mod/data:viewrating
9. mod/data:approve - approves an entry
10. mod/data:uploadentries - batch upload of entries
Exercise
1. mod/exercise:assess
Forum
1. mod/forum:viewdiscussion
2. mod/forum:viewdiscussionsfromallgroups
3. mod/forum:viewhiddentimedposts
4. mod/forum:startdiscussion
5. mod/forum:replypost
6. mod/forum:viewrating
7. mod/forum:viewanyrating
8. mod/forum:rate
9. mod/forum:createattachment
10. mod/forum:deleteownpost
11. mod/forum:deleteanypost
12. mod/forum:splitdiscussions
13. mod/forum:movediscussions
14. mod/forum:editanypost
15. mod/forum:viewqandawithoutposting
16. mod/forum:viewsubscribers
17. mod/forum:managesubscriptions
18. mod/forum:throttlingapplies
Glossary
1. mod/glossary:write - add entries
2. mod/glossary:manageentries - add, edit, delete entries
3. mod/glossary:managecategories - create, delete, edit categories
4. mod/glossary:comment - comment on an entry
5. mod/glossary:managecomments - edit, delete comments
6. mod/glossary:import - import glossaries
7. mod/glossary:export - export glossaries
8. mod/glossary:approve - approve glossaries
9. mod/glossary:rate - rates glossary
10. mod/glossary:viewrating - view ratings
Hotpot
1. mod/hotpot:attempt - attempt a hotpot
2. mod/hotpot:viewreport - review and view reports
3. mod/hotpot:grade - (grade? and) regrade
4. mod/hotpot:deleteattempt - deletes attempts
Label
1. none
Lams
1. mod/lams:participate - original student
2. mod/lams:manage - original teacher
Lesson
1. mod/lesson:edit - add and edit pages
2. mod/lesson:manage - view student attempts
Quiz
1. mod/quiz:grade - comment, override grade, manual grade
2. mod/quiz:preview - previews the quiz
3. mod/quiz:viewreports - view quiz result reports
4. mod/quiz:manage - add/delete/move (up or down) questions for a quiz
5. mod/quiz:attempt - attempt the quiz--Tim Hunt
Resource
Scorm
1. mod/scorm:viewgrades
Survey
1. mod/survey:download - downloads survery result
2. mod/survey:participate - participate/ do survey
3. mod/survey:readresponses - read all user's responese
Wiki
1. mod/wiki:participate - original student, meaning depends of type and course setting
2. mod/wiki:manage - original teacher, manages assigned group; moodle/site:accessallgroups is needed to manage all groups
3. (Waiting on new wiki)
Workshop
1. mod/workshop:participate - original student, allows user to submit and assess
2. mod/workshop:manage - original teacher, user can manage others
3. (Waiting on new Workshop)

Enrolment-level Capabilities

The naming convention for capabilities that are specific to enrolment is 'enrol/enrol_name:capability'. The enrolment capabilities are defined in enrol/enrol_name/db/access.php.

Authorize.net Payment Gateway
1. enrol/authorize:managepayments - manage user payments, capture, void, refund, delete etc.

Blocks

activity_modules
1. None
admin
admin_2
admin_bookmarks
blog_menu
blog_tags
calendar_month
calendar_upcoming
course_list
course_summary
glossary_random
html
loancalc
login
messages
news_items
online_users
participants
quiz_results
recent_activity
rss_client
1. block/rss_client:createprivatefeeds
2. block/rss_client:createsharedfeeds
3. block/rss_client:manageownfeeds
4. block/rss_client:manageanyfeeds
search
search_forums
section_links
site_main_menu
social_activities

Questions

I am adding question categories here because they seem to have been forgotten in the whole scheme of things since having been removed from the quiz module itself. I've made a suggestion on how these could be handled in bug 6118.

See this forum thread for a discussion about the current problems wth publishing question categories.Tim Hunt 18:50, 8 August 2006 (WST)

API

Although the Roles system may look complicated at first glance, implementing it in Moodle code is fairly simple.

You need to define each capability once, so that Moodle can upgrade existing roles to take advantage of it. You do this in an access.php inside the db folder of any module (eg see mod/forum/db/access.php). The array contains entries like this (note the descriptions for the legacy roles which provides forward compatibility):

   'mod/forum:viewforum' => array(
       'captype' => 'read',
       'contextlevel' => CONTEXT_MODULE,
       'legacy' => array(
           'guest' => CAP_PREVENT,
           'student' => CAP_ALLOW,
           'teacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
           'editingteacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
           'coursecreator' => CAP_ALLOW,
           'admin' => CAP_ALLOW
       )
   ),

To load/change these capabilities you need to bump the module version. There's no need to provide changes or differences as Moodle will scan the whole array and sort it out.
On each page you need to find the context the user is working in, using the get_context_instance() function. For example, in the forum module:

 $context = get_context_instance(CONTEXT_MODULE, $cm->id);

Then, whenever you want to check that the current user has rights to do something, call has_capability() like this:

   if (!has_capability('mod/forum:viewforum', $context)) {
       print_error('nopermissiontoviewforum');
   }

If you just want to assert a capability and then finish with an error message if it's not met (as we did above), then a shorter way it to use require_capability() like this:

   require_capability('mod/forum:viewforum', $context);

Note that there are extra parameters you can specify to get a custom error message, otherwise users get an automated "No permissions" message that lists the permission they were missing.

As a result of the new Roles System, all calls to isadmin(), iscoursecreator, isteacheredit(), isteacher(), isstudent(), and isguest() will have to be replaced with calls to has_capability() or require_capability(). However, these functions will be retained for some backward compatibility with old code, using the legacy capabilities to try and work out what to do.

Metacourses

The behaviour of metacourses in Moodle 1.7 changed slightly, in that where it used to just synch students from child courses to the parent course, it will now synch ALL roles. Teachers etc of the child courses will have the same role in the meta course. Technically metacourse synchronises all role assignments in CONTEXT_COURSE with its child courses; the only exception are users with moodle/course:managemetacourse capability, these users are synchronized only upwards, they are not unenrolled from metacourse when unenroling from child course or when removing the child from metacourse.

In order to import/enrol other courses into metacoure you need to have moodle/course:managemetacourse capability. You can add manually only participants with moodle/course:managemetacourse, all other participants are automatically synced with child courses - if you try to manually enrol user without this capability error is displayed. Similar error is shown also when you try to manually unenrol participant from meta course while still being enrolled in child course.

Sample setup:

metacourse manager has been assigned role with moodle/course:managemetacourse capability in system or course category context
students are enrolled in several child courses
teachers are enrolled in separate child course(s)

Problem areas we are working on

Student view

The "Student view" button has been removed completely.

If there is time and a secure way can be found, it will be replaced by a menu to let the user assume a temporary role in the context of that course.

Teacher forum

Teacher forums were always a curious exception to normal forums, as they were not part of a course as such, and were not backed up.

We're taking the opportunity to rectify this. The upgrade converts teacher forums with content to normal forums in section 0 of the course, and ensures that only teachers can access them. If the teacher forum had not been used in the course then it's not converted and will just dissappear.

Enrolment plugins

Process of logging in

load_user_capability() is called to load all the capabilities
check_enrolment_plugins() is called at the top of load_user_capability() to check all the enrolment plugins.
For each active plugin:
1. Check for setup_enrolments($user) and run it. This function will do all the processing needed to assign or unassign roles from the current user.
load_user_capability() continues and loads up all the roles
load_defaultuser_role() is called to add default site permissions (all users)

Process of checking access to a course

require_login($course->id) is called by the script and has logic like this:

Is the user a guest at site level?
1. Yes: Does the course allow guests?
  1. Yes: return true (and further capabilities are checked by the script)
  2. No: send the user to course/enrol.php for enrolment
2. No: continue below

Does the user have moodle/course:view in that (course) context?
1. Yes: then they can enter (and further capabilities are checked by the script)
2. No: is guest access allowed on the course?
  1. Yes: assign temporary guest role to that user for that context (in session cache).
  2. No: send the user to course/enrol.php for enrolment.

Process of enrolling

(more soon)

Scenario brainstorming

This section is for brainstorming some example roles that we would like to support. Note some of these *may* not be possible in 1.7.

Student

Obviously.

Site Designers

Is there a role for people involved in how the site looks but not full administrators? Thinking here of online control of themes rather than FTP theme uploading. But in either case they caneditlogos, caneditcss, candeditlevelatwhichthemeapplies.

Educational Authority Adviser

Someone who would want to browse the site and may be asked to comment or contribute to particular discussions or developments in school. Access for this role would be controlled by the school in the case of school level moodles but may be different if there were to be a Local Authority wide Moodle.

Educational Inspector

Someone who will visit the site to verify the school's self review that comments on home school relationships, extending the classroom etc. They may want to see summaries of usage and reports from surveys garnering parent and pupil views.

Second Marker / Moderator

A teacher within ths site that has access to assignments and quizzes from another teacher's course for second marking purposes. This may need additional functionality adding to the assignment module so that two sets of grades/feedback can be given to one set of assignments.

Peer observer of teaching

Many institutions encourage peer observation of teaching, to encourage reflection on practice. In online environments this will be similar to moderation or inspection. The peer observer would need to be able to experience the course "as a student", but also to be able to view summaries of usage, transcripts of interactions (forums/surveys/polls etc), grades assigned (e.g. in assignments).

External Examiner

Has all the rights of inspectors, but would also need to be able to review assignments and feedback, view forums, glossaries etc. However, would not want to post, feedback onto the site at all.

Parent

A parent will have one or more children in one or more institutions which could be using one or more moodle instances or a mixture of Learning Platforms. A parent's role will vary depending on the age of their children and whether they are contributing as a parent or a school supporter.

In Early Years (EY=3+4 yr olds) and Key Stage 1 (KS1=5+6 yr olds) they may play/learn on an activity or write for the child. Parents often interpret homework tasks and read to their children perhaps filling in a joint reading diary. In Key Stage 2 (KS2=7-11 yr olds) parents would be more monitoring but may join in as well.

In Key stages 3 (KS3=12-14 yr olds) and 4 (KS4=15+16 yr olds) this changes to more of a monitoring/awareness role where a parent would expect to have a summary report of attendance, attainment and general achievement on a weekly/monthly/termly or annual basis. Parents will often be asked to sign and write back comments about this review report.

In all Key Stages there is a great need for parents to receive communication from the school which they can confirm they have received by signing a form. In some cases this may also involve making choices from a list. It may also involve payment for a trip or disco being returned so there could be the possibility of electronic payments. Also in all Key Satges there may be a home-school agreement which may be signed up to. Could this form part of a site policy system that incorporates a tickable list of activities the parent agrees to the child using (blogs/wikis/forums etc.)?

Parent's evenings often involve complex booking systems that attempt to get parent's and teachers together. Easy for EY/KS1/KS2 very difficult for KS3/KS4. Wow would this help if it was built into the Learning Platform.

In some cases there needs to be confidential communication between the parent and the teacher without the child being party to this. It may involve teaching and learning but could also involve a behaviour or medical issue. Often this may be done via a sealed letter or face to face.

The latest incarnation of OfSTED with the Self Review Framework (SEF) there is a greater emphasis on schools gathering parent voice via surveys and discussion. There is a clear match here with parents have access to parental votes, questionnaires and discussions and for schools to be able to publish news, results and reports back to parents.

In the UK the LP framework and agenda as being pushed by the DfES via Becta emphasises that within the mandatory groups and roles functionality the parent role is likely to be required to meet the LP Framework procurement standard.

Again in the UK, parents have their own independent right of access to a child's educational records. Obviously, children's records must not be made available to other parties, including the parents of other children in the same class. Thus it would be necessary to associate parent accounts with their own child's accounts in such a way that they could, if so desired, have read access to their child's grades, answers and contributions, but generally not those of other children - this may be problematic in the case of wiki activities or forum posts.

There is some concern that children's forum contributions etc may be constrained if their parents are able to read all that they write; this may be particularly problematic in areas such as Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE), where some schools may choose to use obfuscated usernames.

Manager

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Weekly Seminar Leader

In a university seminar, typically 8-15 students in their 3rd/4th year, each student is responsible for leading one topic in a study series. I ask each student to research 5-10 resources, then give a powerpoint presentation to the other students. This is followed by an in-class discussion and then online homework. The homework involves some fun quiz questions and then some reflective journal questions. I ask each seminar leader to prepare the quiz questions and journal questions as well as their presentation. To do that, I would like to assign activity-making/authoring roles to the student--either for a short period, or for duration of the whole course. Thus "Allow Quiz Authoring Role" or "Allow Assignment Authoring Role" at the course level or, if possible, even the Topic level (in a topic or week format course) would be important.

Mentor/Mentee

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Community-Designed Rating Criteria

The gradebook tends to be the domain of the teacher. What if community/peer ratings/marks could also be entered there? What if peer assessment criteria could be designed by the students, not just the teacher?

Visitor

This would be a role whereby one could allow a visitor to visit one's classroom. This might be a colleague interested in seeing your course, or a journalist who might be writing an article about one's site. They should not be able to see the names of any students anywhere (eg recent activity, forum posts) for privacy reasons. They should be able to try out things like quizzes, and lessons but no grades would be recorded (like in teacher preview mode). They would not be able to participate in choices and forums but could view them. It would be read only in a way like former-student role below but without access to a particular student's records that former student role would grant.

Guest Speaker

This role would be similar to the Visitor role above, but would allow seeing student names, and also allow both reading and posting to a specific forum or forums. We often have "guest speakers" who read and respond to student forum posts. Right now we have to add them as students, which isn't ideal.

Former Student

This role would be of particular use for courses with rolling enrollments. This role would be one where a student had completed all of the requirements of a course (ie assignments, quizzes etc.) but wished to have continued access to the course material for review or consultation. The key factor is that one would give access to the completed student to the notes he read, his work and the teacher's comments on it, but he would not be allowed to do anything that would take up the teacher's time. In other words, a sort-of read-only access to the course. How forums, which might contain pertinent information and would continue to grow, would be handled is a question. Perhaps the student would be shown only what was in the forums at the time he completed the course. He would not be allowed to see any new posts or add any himself. Same thing for database and glossary entries. In other words, a snapshot of the course at the time his regular enrollment ended. He shouldn't be able to see the names or profiles of any newly enrolled students for privacy reasons-hence the restrictions on forum access. One issue that would have to be dealt with would be changes to existing modules-such as resources. Does the student get access to the module as it was or as it is? We have no versioning of resources in Moodle so this would be a problem. What about a teacher changing a quiz question so that the answer is different? What would a former student see?

===Alumnus=== An ALUMNUS should be able to search for all other ALUMNI of the school, interact with them and be enrolled in a seperate course - which is like a META course with all the content of his learning and interaction - as well as capabilities to be a part of this ALUMNI only course. All the teachers of courses during school years should automatically be a part of the ALUMNI course .. which means when an ALUMNUS is enrolled in a course, the original teachers of all his courses get enrolled ? --Anil Sharma 20:54, 15 July 2006 (WST)

Librarian

Reference Librarians have an active role in most of the courses taught at some schools such as Earlham College (with Bibliographic Instruction). The Librarian role within Moodle could encompass default read access to all courses (unless prohibited by course teacher) and read access to all components of the course unless access is barred (again by teacher). The Librarians would also perhaps have a block called perhaps Reference Services or Reference Desk with write access where they could deposit resources. Also this block might have a chat applet whereby enrolled students could chat to the Reference Librarian on duty about their bibliographic research needs.

In schools there is often a book review system. This may be covered by the lending system database but may not in which case a librarian may neeed to have a course area they can create a database template to handle the reviews in which case they may have a normal teacher style role? Off topic but course an integration with common schools database systems would be great.

Teacher

Teachers should have read access to other Teacher's courses unless explictly prohibited. They should be able to set parts of their own course to be totally private (perhaps even to admin?). Just as each activity can currently be set to have group access, each activity could have a permissions field. Teachers could set default permissions for all activities on their course (eg they might disallow Librarian access for example) and then change the access permission for an individual activity.

I think that what is needed is a simple heirarchy of permissions and levels of granularity.

I would take issue with "teachers should have read access to other teacher's courses unless explicitly prohibited." This is a violation of the students' privacy as how they perform and what they do in one class isn't the business of another teacher. Moreover, in the real world a teacher wouldn't suddenly go sit in on a colleague's class without asking permission first. I would not have appreciated such an invasion of privacy as either a teacher or a student. It could be an option, but shouldn't be default.--N Hansen 19:54, 12 June 2006 (WST)

Community Education Tutors/Trainers

Teachers may be community adult education trainers making use of a school moodle so must only have access to their courses unless given access elsewhere. They would not necessarily get the default teacher privileges.

Secretary/Student Worker

We often have faculty who want their departmental secretary or student worker to scan and upload files and perhaps create resources. Currently they have to be given teacher access to the course. This is dangerous from a FERPA standpoint since they could easily get access to grades.

Teaching Assistant

Our Faculty frequently have undergraduate students acting as Teaching Assistants. These students need to be able to add resources, create assignments, and possibly grade assignments. However, due to FERPA they cannot have access to other students' overall grade information. I think the requirements here are slightly different than those of Secretary/Student Worker

Student - FERPA rights

A student that has asserted their FERPA rights to non-disclosure. Typically includes not publishing their name in any public place. Could include this student only being seen with an "alias" within course spaces. Is this an attribute rather than a role?

Help Desk

Help desk agents that have read access for the purposes of trouble shooting. Some care in placing this role within a hierarchy of inheritance is needed, full access will be problematic with FERPA.

Admin - Catgory based

Basically a person in between full Admin and Creator that has the permissions of an Admin but only with respect to courses and students. Currently a Creator has permissions site-wide which does not always meet the requirements of a given organisation (e.g. Department A may not be happy that a person from Department B can create/modify courses within Department A's area). The ability to designate a Creator within a specific category would allow areas to be set up for a faculty/department/organisation and allow the Admin for that area to create/delete courses, upload users, add site-wide entries to the calendar etc.

Process Roles

organising the learning process for a group you wish to have the choice to place students in differnt roles: examples of this are:

Give a student the role of forum-moderator with edit and chunk-rights
Give students different roles & rights in a Webquest design (and change these roles next week
Give students different resources, depending of their roles in a rolegame/simulation
Give a student the rights to create the section content of next week (and only that week..)

Things to finish for 1.7 Beta

18 Sept 2006

Remove core references to user_student, user_teacher, user_admin, user_coursecreator tables. [Yu]
Address function: isteacher, isadmin, isstudent [Yu]
Remove "view" capabilities from all modules unless required [Vy]
Remove all old references from remaining Blocks [Vy]
Metacourses [Skodak]
Add risks to GUI[Skodak]
Enrolment plugins [Martin and Alastair]
Statistics [Penny]
Fix Loginas
Add category-level assigns [Yu]
Backups [Eloy?]

Proposal for interface enhancement

Martin asked some questions, here are my answers. The sketches below are not worked out proposals. Their task is to visualize the idea. The exact colours and functionality may be defined after possible agreement about the proposals. The Green, orange and red columns support the meaning of the options from "allow" to "prohibit" (If you may want to see larger images please click onto the image or the "Enlarge" icon below the image.)

The list of possible settings is very long and "... the problem is not to overwhelm people with information" .

Fichier:01 moodle define roles structured.png

1) One proposal is to use colour to structure the sections and the columns. Picture 1 shows that the user can keep a much better overview when the list is divided into meaningful different coloured columns and clear sections.

Fichier:02 moodle define roles collapsed.png

2) A second proposal is to reduce the amount of information the user is shown at the same time. The YUI interface library offers great support to show/hide sections of the page by clicking on specific elements.

For example click on an icon beside the sub heading "Course categories" and show/hide all table rows with the CLASS "course-category".

Fichier:03 moodle define roles tooltip.png

3) "The main problem is the last column for risk ... we were thinking of putting little icons in there ..." Icons are good when they tell the user more about possible actions/meanings then the letters. I am not sure if this is the case here. For both - icons or letters - the YUI tool-tip function would be able to give the user valuable information about the meaning.

Documentation