Roles and permissions
Template:Moodle 1.7
Roles and capabilities in Moodle 1.7 onwards provides great flexibility in managing how users interact. Prior to Moodle 1.7, there were only six roles possible: guest, student, non-editing teacher, editing teacher, course creator, and administrator. Whilst these roles may still be used, it's now possible to create additional roles, and to change what a given role can do in a particular activity.
Definitions
- Role
- An identifier of the user's status in some context, for example teacher, student and forum moderator
- Capability
- A description of a particular Moodle feature, for example moodle/blog:create
- Permission
- Some value that is assigned for a capability for a particular role, for example allow or prevent
- Context
- A "space" in Moodle, such as courses, activity modules or blocks
Upgrading to 1.7
The upgrade to 1.7 is as smooth as we could make it. The existing roles (admin, teacher, student etc.) and the existing capabilities will be automatically 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, mirroring what we have in 1.6. With no modifications, Moodle will operate almost exactly the same before and after the upgrade.
