When enrolling a user into a course you select the Role to assign them in that course.

What access a role has to a course is defined globally for all of RIT. The access a role has cannot be customized at the course level.

User Roles

User roles work with a course as participants.

User roles cannot see a course listed nor access it if a course is set as inactive by the Instructor or if the timing is currently before the start date set on a course (Course Admin > Course Offering Information).

• Student - The general Student Role. Students can participate fully in a course and their work can be evaluated. Students can only see their own information in tools that would be considered of a personal nature such as the Grades, individual Assignment submissions, Quizzes, etc.
• Guest - A guest has the same basic access of a Student, but they cannot submit work in tools for assessment, is not listed in Grades, and cannot be added to Groups. For example they cannot take a quiz nor submit files to a Assignment folder.
• K12Participant - A special role that has the general access that a Student does but the role has been locked down where possible to prevent interaction outside of public course shell activities, and from seeing private information such as profiles and email addresses. For example the role can participate in Discussions, but cannot email through the Classlist. This role can submit assessments and be graded like a Student.

Staff Roles

Staff Roles have varying control over the course and course tools. The roles are listed below in order from most control to the least control.

Staff Roles cannot participate in activities to be evaluated such as taking a quiz, submitting an Assignment, and cannot be graded.

Their access is not restricted by course dates or the courses active state.

The hierarchy from Most access to least access is:

• Instructor - The general Instructor Role, has full control over the course.
• Support Staff - All the access an Instructor has but not the title.
• Teaching Assistant - Generally the same access as an Instructor Role with regards to creating and editing but, where the permissions allow for it, the TA is restricted from deleting in a tool.
• Grader - May download and evaluate Assignments, can upload files in Assignment feedback, grade items in the Grades, import/export grades in the Grades, and grade Quizzes. All other access is the same a Guest. Grader can only work in Enter Grades with the Grades previously set up by the staff in roles higher than Grader. They cannot create or edit in Manage Grades.
• Access Services - Has the same basic access of a Student, but they cannot submit work in tools for assessment and cannot be added to groups. Intended for Sign Language Interpreters and C-Print Captionists supporting courses to be able to review general course materials.

Special Staff Access

• Course Copy Access - A special restricted role intended to allow the user to copy the course. Wherever possible read-only access has been granted. Some aspects to note:
  
  • To be able to copy a course, a user must be globally granted the ability to copy in to a course where they are granted this role. Because of this there is the risk that a user with Course Copy Access could accidentally copy in to the course they are granted access to if they are not careful. Unfortunately this is the big catch with the current permission settings available to us.
  • Grades will only show a student view for a user with Course Copy Access.
  • Quizzes can be previewed, but to grant this permission a user with Course Copy Access has access to the Edit Categories button. This was considered an acceptable concession to allow users to preview quizzes before copying.
  • Some tools may not be accessible if they are not publicly accessible on the navigation bar, but they will copy. Some examples of this are the Attendance and Rubrics tools.
  • Tools this role will not be able to preview, but they may copy:
    
    • Attendance
    • Homepages
    • Navigation & Themes
    • Question Library

Access Levels

Each account acts on two access levels on myCourses: The main RIT organization and the Course level.

At the main RIT level, users can be enrolled as Student, Instructor, or K12Participant this is used to manage access to the general tools and resources available on the main myCourses Homepage. At the course level all roles are available.

Course Sections

A users role in a course will impact how a user can see sections in a merged course.

• Student, Guest, and K12 Participant are enrolled in a specific section and can only see the information and members of the section they are assigned to.

All other roles have access to all sections of a course.

Regarding Access Services and Assignments

Access Services was granted access to Assignments  August 6, 2020. The vendor has still not granted permissions that would allow us to grant them access without them being listed in the number of users in the Assignments tool.

The text of the announcement from the myCourses Homepage, August 6, 2020:

The Access Services Role has been granted access to the Assignment tool. This allows them to view the available Assignment folders and any instructions on the Assignments as a Student would.

Many instructors are posting instructions only in the Assignment folder and Access Services staff could not view the Assignment folders to assist the students they are supporting.

At this time, this will cause the Access Services staff in a course to be reflected in the number of users in the Assignments tool.

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This page has been moved to the new CTL Knowledge Base.

What access is granted to each Role in a myCourses course?