Development:Roles

Roles and capabilities are planned to be included in Moodle 1.7. For now, we have some basic ideas of how to implement such a structure in Moodle.

Please note that none of the following is finalised.

Definitions

By roles, we mean an identifier of the user's status, for example, teacher, student and forum moderator are examples of roles.

A capability is a permission to access some particular Moodle feature. Capabilities are associated with roles. For example, forum_canreadpost is a capability.

The existing system

Currently in Moodle, we have a fixed set of roles i.e. primary admin, admins, course creators, editing teachers, non-editing teachers, students, and guests. For each role, the capability or actions that they can performed are fixed. For example, the role student allows the user to submit an assignment, but doesn't allow the user to browse/edit other users' work. By using this setup we limit ourselves to a rather rigid set of capabilities for each role. If we want, say a particular student or group to be able to mark assignments in a particular course, we can't do that without giving these users teacher privileges.

The new roles and capability system

The new system will allow authorized users to define an arbitrary number of roles. Each role can have a customizable set of capabilities in every context. A context can be the whole Moodle site, a course, or a module instance, e.g. quiz 5 in 'Introduction to Photography'. An authorized user will be able to assign an arbitrary number of roles to each user. Since the capabilities in each role could be different, there could be conflict in capabilities. This is resolved by giving roles different 'priorities'. For example, to prevent a naughty student from posting, one could assign him a 'naughty student' role that does not allow him to post. This role should have a priority higher than that of a normal 'student' role.

To facilitate exceptional cases in roles and capabilities, we can use exception rules. For example, we can specify a rule saying that all students are able to mark/read other students' assignment in this particular course. Note that such rules need to have a priority as well. The capability of a user, in any context is then resolved by finding the highest priority role/rule.

A smooth upgrade will be provided with 1.7. The existing roles (admin, teacher, student, etc), and the exisiting capabilities will be retained. This is done by creating default roles at site/course levels, and assigning the current users to these roles accordingly. The default roles will have default capabilities associated with them, which pretty much is what we have in 1.6. The whole process is automatic so there's nothing to worry about =). With no modifications, Moodle will operate exactly the same before and after the upgrade.

The plan

There are a few major things that need to be done. Here's a list (in no particular order):

Identify permissions required for site/course/each module.
Define the database structure for storing roles and capabilities.
Recode the whole of Moodle, including all modules to support the new structure. Instead of using isteacher() or isstudent() we should be using has_capabity($capability, $instanceid) etc. A new API for handling roles and capabilities will be implemented (accesslib.php).
Add storage of capabilities for each module. Can be done either in a file, e.g. db/capability.xml, or as a sql file that gets installed to a central db whenever this module is installed. Either way, what do we do when we need to upgrade these capabilities? Some capabilities might needs refining/splitting later on. How do we control the 'version' of a capability?
Consider interface issues, especially how to manage conflicting role/exception rules.
Upon logging in, we should use a cache to store capability, down to module level. How should that be structured?
Consider the impact on backup/restore.
Upgrade path for current users. The user information in table user_coursecreators, user_admins, user_teachers, and user_students will most likely be migrated to the new roles and capabilities tables. The users will most likely be assigned default roles that comes with default capabilities (e.g. teachers, admins, students, etc). The old tables themselves could possibly be dropped at the end of the upgrade.

Capabilities

This is a comprehensive list of capabilities, well, in the making. Please edit. Should we distinguish canedit and candelete?

What about a canview capability? Like for choice, where a person is allowed to see the choice question but not participate in it? --N Hansen 19:29, 16 May 2006 (WST)

Course-level Capabilities

canseecoursecontent
caneditcourse
cancreatebackups
canrestorebackups
cancreateblocks
caneditblocks
candeleteblocks

Module-level Capabilities

Assignment
1. assignment_canadd
2. assignment_canedit
3. assignment_candelete
4. assignment_cansubmit
5. assignment_canmark
6. assignment_canviewsubmissions
Chat
1. chat_canadd
2. chat_canedit
3. chat_candelete
4. chat_canparticipate
5. chat_canviewpastsessions
Choice
1. choice_canadd
2. choice_canedit
3. choice_candelete
4. choice_canparticipate
5. choice_canviewresponses
Database
1. database_canadd
2. database_canedit
3. databaes_candelete
4. database_canaddentry
5. database_canaddtemplates
6. database_canedittemplates
7. database_candeleteownentry
8. database_candeleteallentry
9. database_cancomment
10. database_candeletecomment
11. database_canrate
Exercise
1. exercise_canadd
2. exercise_canedit
3. exercise_candelete
4. exercise_canassess
Forum
1. forum_canadd
2. forum_canedit
3. forum_candelete
4. forum_canreadpost
5. forum_canstartnewdiscussion
6. forum_canreply
7. forum_caneditallpost
8. forum_candeleteallpost
9. forum_canrate
Glossary
1. glossary_canadd
2. glossary_canedit
3. glossary_candelete
4. glossary_canaddcat
5. glossary_caneditcat
6. glossary_candeletecat
7. glossary_canadditem
8. glossary_candeleteitem
9. glossary_canedititem
10. glossary_cancomment
11. glossary_canimportentries
12. glossary_canexportentries
13. glossary_canapprove
Hotpot
1. hotpot_candd
2. hotpot_canedit
3. hotpot_candelete
4. hotpot_canparticipate
Label
1. label_canadd
2. label_canedit
3. label_candelete
Lams
1. lams_canadd
2. lams_canedit
3. lams_candelete
Lesson
1. lesson_canadd
2. lesson_canedit
3. lesson_candelete
4. lesson_canparticipate
Quiz
1. quiz_canadd
2. quiz_canedit
3. quiz_candelete
4. quiz_canaddquestion
5. quiz_caneditquestion
6. quiz_candeletequestion
7. quiz_canparticipate
8. quiz_cangrade
Resource
1. resource_canadd
2. resource_canedit
3. resource_candelete
Scorm
1. scorm_canadd
2. scorm_canedit
3. socrm_candelete
Survey
1. survey_canadd
2. survey_canedit
3. survey_candelete
4. survey_canviewresponses
Wiki
1. wiki_canadd
2. wiki_canedit
3. wiki_candelete
4. wiki_canstartnewwiki
5. wiki_canparticipate
Workshop
1. workshop_canadd
2. workshop_canedit
3. workshop_candelete
4. workshop_cangrade
5. workshop_canparticipate

Scenarios

This section is for brainstorming some example roles that we would like to support:

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.

In Early Years (EY) and Key Stage 1 (KS1) 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 stages 3 and 4 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.

Parent's evening 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.

Manager

Please add text here...

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

Please add text here...

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.

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?

Librarian

Reference Librarians have an active role in most of the courses taught at 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.

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.

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

Documentation