Oncourse permissions and roles: Overview

What they do

Permissions allow users to access certain features of a course or project worksite, depending on their roles, and on the decisions made by the site owner and the system administrator.

Roles are collections of permissions. Some roles allow users to simply access or read content, while other roles allow for advanced changes, such as adding participants, editing the site's content, and changing permissions for other roles.

When you create a worksite, or when one is created for you, you have the role with the most permissions and the broadest level of access. You can choose (within the limits established by the system administrator) which tools or functions (e.g., Forums, Calendar, Resources) you want the site to have. For many of these tools or functions, you can set permissions that allow or prevent users from seeing or performing certain tasks, depending on their roles.

For a summary of participant roles and how to find out what your role is, see Participant roles. For a comprehensive list of all permissions associated with participant roles, see Permissions, roles, and tools.

Key concepts

Roles may vary in name, depending on the application. However, in general, the creator of a project site, or the instructor of a course site, has full permissions, and can add or delete content within a worksite.

A user who joins an existing site has a more limited role. The permissions of this role allow for interaction in the site (e.g., creating Chat messages), but do not allow for advanced tasks (e.g., uploading files into Resources or creating assignments).

However, each implementation of the application will be different. System administrators can decide during implementation which roles to install, and which permissions these roles will have.

UITS grants access to administrative tools within Oncourse to users who provide support to the Indiana University campus community. An academic department can designate its own administrator to provide support for its students and instructors using Oncourse. These department administrators have full administrative rights for editing and migrating all courses and rosters listed within a specific department. In addition, those sites leveraging the Basic LTI tool will grant designated Oncourse administrators the instructor role to external tools.

Things to remember

• The availability of a tool in a worksite depends on the particular implementation of the system administrator. If you have broad rights to a worksite, and find that a tool is not available through Site Setup, consult your administrator.
  
  
• The Resources and Drop Box tools share the same permissions set. You can modify them in the Resources tool.
  
  
• Default roles have default permissions. These defaults can be edited on the system level by the system administrator, and on the worksite level by anyone with full permissions to the site.
  
  
• All users are assigned the broadest role in their respective My Workspaces to give them editing control.

Help documentation

For help documentation about permissions and roles, see Permissions and roles.

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