Talk:Teacher role
For a forum discussion of what led me to rewrite this page, see the forum message thread here: How to assign a teacher to a course --Stephen Winters (talk) 19:47, 15 April 2014 (WST)
Documentation discussion
Hi again Stephen and thanks for this. I thought I would add a few tweaks here below (ignore my English and your US spelling - both or either are fine!) and ask you what you thought before anything gets copied over to the main page. I have tried to keep the extra information you added while making some parts briefer with links to other pages where the information is already present. The main thing is to make it clearer for new Moodlers, as you rightly pointed out.--Mary Cooch (talk) 02:21, 19 April 2014 (WST)
Teacher role
Teachers can do almost anything within a course, including adding or changing the activities and grading students. By default, teachers can also assign a Non-editing teacher role and a Student role to other users. (To allow teachers to enrol other teachers, see Assign roles
By default users are not assigned the role of Teacher throughout the site, but are only assigned (enrolled) as a teacher to a single class at a time. The same applies to students. Teachers can only teach in the courses they have been enrolled in. (If you really need your teacher to access all courses, see #13 of Roles FAQ
Enrolling a user as a teacher in a course
- As a manager or administrator, go to Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolled users
- Click the 'Enrol users' button at the top right or bottom left of the page
- From the 'Assign roles' dropdown choose the teacher role
- Select enrolment options as appropriate
- Browse or search for the user
- Click the Enrol button opposite the user. The user will indent in the list and the enrol button will disappear, indicating that the user is enrolled.
- When you have finished, click the 'Finish enrolling users' button (or simply close the enrol users box)
The user will then appear in the list of enrolled users and will no longer be available in the search list.
For more information on manually enrolling teachers, see Manual enrolment
Changing Teacher Permissions
Note: if you need to modify the Teacher role significantly, it is advisable to create a new role rather than editing the default teacher role. See Creating custom roles
If you really need to change the default Teacher role, go to Administration>Site administration>Users>Permissions>Define roles. In the right pane you will see Manage Roles with a list of user roles. To the right of the teacher description, click on the edit icon.
From the Editing role 'Teacher' page you can change what a teacher can or cannot do by checking or unchecking the Allow check-boxes under Capability/Permission. Be careful what you allow a teacher to do here. Consider the security vulnerabilities of giving a teacher an inappropriate permission. Only give the teacher permissions that are necessary or appropriate. To the right of many of the Allow check boxes are colored triangles the notify you of possible security warnings for each choice. Use those warnings to help you decide which permissions you will or won't give to your teachers.
Enrolling teachers category or site-wide
Under some conditions (such as for homeschool parents) you may want to assign a user the role of teacher within a category or for your whole site, instead of manually enrolling them into every course. Only modify the default Teacher role if you are certain you need to. It is preferable to create a new role and assign it to the category or site context. To understand the idea of roles in category and sites contexts, see Assign roles and to assign a teacher to a category, see Category enrolments.
Comments on Mary's revision
Mary, you were kind enough to leave my writing in tact as we discussed it. Consequently, I don't want to mess up your revisions, so I've copied your revised text below here so that I can comment on it while leaving your version in tact. Since we don't seem to be using bold in the document, I'll put my comments and suggested revisions in bold text, so they are both easier to see.--Stephen Winters (talk) 11:09, 19 April 2014 (WST)
Teacher role
Teachers can do almost anything within a course, including adding or changing the activities and grading students. By default, teachers can also assign a Non-editing teacher role and a Student role to other users. (To allow teachers to enrol other teachers, see Assign roles
My only question here is whether or not teachers can edit the roles (change what they can do) or not.) If so, perhaps mention that, if not, fine. Otherwise this section is fine.
By default users are not assigned the role of Teacher throughout the site, but are only assigned (enrolled) as a teacher to a single class at a time. The same applies to students. Teachers can only teach in the courses in which they have been enrolled. (If you really need your teacher to access all courses, see #13 of Roles FAQ This section OK. S.W.
Enrolling a user as a teacher in a course
Mary, thank you for putting this below section in number format. I should have done that. S.W.
- As a manager or administrator, while in the chosen course, go to Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolled users
- Click the 'Enrol users' button at the top right or bottom left of the page
- From the 'Assign roles' dropdown choose the teacher role
- Select enrolment options as appropriate
- Browse or search for the user
- Click the Enrol button opposite the user. The user will indent in the list and the enrol button will disappear, indicating that the user is enrolled.
- When you have finished, click the 'Finish enrolling users' button (or simply close the enrol users box)
The user will then appear in the list of enrolled users and will no longer be available in the search list.
For more information on manually enrolling teachers, see Manual enrolment
This Section OK. S.W.
Changing Teacher Permissions
Note: if you need to modify the Teacher role significantly, it is advisable to create a new role rather than editing the default teacher role. See Creating custom roles Mary, I like the way you added this sentence, good idea. S.W.
If you really need to change the default Teacher role, go to Administration>Site administration>Users>Permissions>Define roles. In the right pane you will see Manage Roles with a list of user roles. To the right of the teacher description, click on the edit icon.
From the Editing role 'Teacher' page you can change what a teacher can or cannot do by checking or unchecking the Allow check-boxes under Capability/Permission. Be careful what you allow a teacher to do here. Consider the security vulnerabilities of giving a teacher an inappropriate permission. Only give the teacher permissions that are necessary or appropriate. To the right of many of the Allow check boxes are colored triangles the notify you of possible security warnings for each choice. Use those warnings to help you decide which permissions you will or won't give to your teachers. This above section OK. and Down to here, everything, as noted looks good. S.W.
Enrolling teachers category or site-wide
Under some conditions (such as for homeschool parents) you may want to assign a user the role of teacher within a category or for your whole site, instead of manually enrolling them into every course. Only modify the default Teacher role if you are certain you need to. It is preferable to create a new role and assign it to the category or site context. To understand the idea of roles in category and sites contexts, see Assign roles and to assign a teacher to a category, see Category enrolments.
Mary, to me, this last section is missing some necessary parts. And I'm not comfortable with just cutting out the whole rest of it from here down. I understand the concept of keeping the documentation for each specific function on it's own page, and linking to it. That's a good practice. It makes it a lot easier to keep each section updated because it's not duplicated at various sections in other parts of the docs. I understand all of that. But here is another viewpoint. Make it easy for the reader. When a reader, such as myself, has to flip here and there, back and forth, trying to trace out and understand what I'm supposed to do to make something work, it gets very confusing, at least for me.
When I compare what I wrote about assigning "Role Archetype" in this section, it seems to me a lot easier for the reader to understand what the different choices are and what to do. (I'm writing it as a new user and everything might not be accurate, and it could be written better and condensed.).
Now, where's the balance? How to make it easy for the reader and easy to maintain? Anyway, that's my two cents worth.
Anyway, I'm not in the mindset to think any more about this right now, so will sign off.
Best Wishes, Stephen
More about Enrolling Teachers
Mary, I've been looking at the Enrolling teachers category or site-wide section that you rewrote. I've also been looking at the Assign roles and the Category enrolments pages that you linked. Here's what I'm thinking. when a newbie is trying to set up a piece of software, is just look for some step-by-step directions of what to do. He is not wanting to know all the ins and outs of the whys and wherefores. Over a period of almost 30 years of installing hundreds of software, searching for instructions, looking through many user forums, I've learned to appreciate good clear step-by-step instructions all on one page. A user is focusing on just trying to get the software up and running and set up correctly, then put it to the desired use.
In looking the Assign roles and the Category enrolments pages I'm thinking, this is way more information that an average newbie is looking for. I think it is more helpful to have all the basic steps all on one page.
And here is another challenge. As a writer I try to respect other people's writing and not mess with it any more than necessary. If I do make changes to their writing, I try to use as much of their words as possible, even if I think I have a better way of saying it. Why I want to make a lot of changes to their writing, I try to add to their wordage, if possible, and to explain why the change if I can't use their words. For instance, when I first found this Teacher page there were only one sentence and a few words at the bottom, as you can see here. Rather than just delete the one sentence and start afresh, I left that sentence in place and just added to it. Also, on the part of the sentences at the bottom, I just completed the sentence to the thought that was intended.
Now, getting back to the Assign roles and the Category enrolments pages, if I were to make it easy for the reader of this Teacher Role page to understand my directions on this page, then I might have to edit those pages as well. And then, would the editors of those pages approve of my changes, or would they just delete them. In this case, it seems a lot safer and easier to put all the instructions on this one page.
And another thought. Writing documentation is not my main focus. When I write something it is because I either discovered a new way to do something, or to fill in a lack in the documentation. Trying to link various ideas to this page and that page is often quite tedious for me because I want it to be accurate. If the process becomes overly complex, then I won't have the time to put the effort in, and thereby put off doing the whole thing. and the documentation stays as it way.
Perhaps another reason I'm putting so much thought into this is because I'm new here and am not use to co-editing things and don't know what the procedure or co-writing ediquette is. I do a lot of writing on my Upholstery Resource website, my upholstery business website Winters Sewing. With both both of them I just write out my thoughts in stages as I have time and the thoughts. The first stage is just to get the general content out. Later, hopefully when I have time, I go through and make changes and improve the way it is said. It's an ongoing process. Best Wishes, Stephen
