The Notes feature is a way to attach information about a user by another user. For example, a teacher might attach a note to a specific student about the hobbies and interests that seems to engage that student.
Users must have the permissions to View notes and Manage notes in order to use this feature in any context. Thus students might be allowed to view or even manage notes within a course.
Accessing Notes
Users must have the permissions to View notes and Manage notes in order to use this feature in any context. Thus students can be allowed to view or even manage notes within a course.
The Notes page may be accessed via the Navigation block via Site pages > Notes, and/or Courses > Course Name > Participants > Moodle User > Notes - depending on your access rights and the context at which the Notes has been set. Teachers cannot by default access the Notes page via Site pages>Notes.
Administrators and managers can access Site notes via Navigation>My profile>Notes, but will see nothing unless they are enrolled in courses, in which case they will see the links to courses allowing them to go there and add Site notes.
Note context
A Note's context determines which users can see the note. You can select from one of the below options when creating or editing a Note.
- Personal - The note will be visible only to you (as the Note author)
- Course - The note will be visible to other Managers and Teachers in this course (or any users with notes:view capability in this course)
- Site - The note will be visible to other Managers and Teachers in all courses (or any users with notes:view capability in any course) when viewing within a course
Tips and tricks
- Notes may be disabled by unticking the enablenotes checkbox in Site administration > Advanced features.
- An Admin, Manager or Teacher may have used the Notes functionality to create private teaching notes regarding a user and changing this user's permissions (or their Role type) will give them access to this information
- Users with this capability set to Allow can edit and delete another user's Note(s)
- Users can only view Notes that have been created within the same context to which their Role has been assigned (e.g. Site, Course, Personal/User).
- Example 1: A Note set to Site Context can be viewed by a Site Administrator at the site level (Site pages> Notes) or by a Teacher when within their own course.
- Example 2: A Note set to Course Context can only be viewed by a Site Administrator when they are in the course in which it was created
- Example 3: A Teacher can only view a Course Context Note when viewed within a course both they and the student/user are associated with
- Notes can be added against any user within the site where the Note author has access rights to view and edit a user's profile and the ability to View notes and Manage notes
