Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Angelin Lalev -
Number of replies: 8

I'm sorry if it's a often asked question. I only found this old discussion

http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-10022

and I wanted to see if something changed.

I want to be able to authorize teachers to change the passwords of students, enrolled into their courses. In our installation, the majority of students belong only to one course, so in fact there is no way of teachers hijacking student account to get, for example, into the course of some other teacher. We have quite many students (in a magnitude of thousands) and there are regularly cases, where the student claims he has forgotten both passwords - for our site and the e-mail account he has entered into his profile. In the same time, this is departamental project and we do not currently have enough resources to have dedicated administrators who will change passwords.

I'm about to go and write a php script that will manipulate the database directly. I'm aware of structure of the database and the password salting mechanism, but I was looking for a way to save myself some work.
 

 

 

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In reply to Angelin Lalev

Re: Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Howard Miller -
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Short answer 'no'. It's a site function not a course one. All you can do is to create a role giving just that right and assign it to teachers at the site context, but that would allow them to change all passwords.

You could write a course report or a block to do this reasonably easily. You still need to consider the trust situation of course.

To take this back to basics, why can't students simply use the lost password mechanism that already exists in Moodle. My inclination is to suggest the sensible route is to get that working (assuming it doesn't)

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Angelin Lalev -

Thanks for the answer.

I'm afraid the motivation of the students is the biggest problem in making the regular mechanism for forgotten passwords to work. The system is mainly used for tests, so there are students that will try to "cheat" by pretending they have lost access to the e-mail in their profile and to the password itself.

I personally warned my students, that lost password in such manner will result automatic Fs, but some of my colleagues didn't agree to such approach. Several weeks ago there was one such student and my colleague made the mistake to tell him that he will re-do the test next week. Now the same colleague complains of 8 cases just in his course...

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In reply to Angelin Lalev

Re: Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Howard Miller -
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So now they will say they forgot their password and couldn't find the member of staff to reset it.

Sounds like your issue, with respect, is not Moodle wink

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In reply to Angelin Lalev

Re: Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Rick Jerz -
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Your problem is interesting, and Howard's perspective is quite good.

In five years of using Moodle, I have only been bothered once or twice by students who had problems with their passwords.  I do get emails from my Moodle frequently showing "failed login attempts", but somehow I am never bothered by any of these students.

I can only conclude that the "Forgotten Password" utility is extremely good.  So although I am sympathetic with students who try to claim they couldn't log into Moodle, I never take this as an excuse.

Make sure to show students this tool at the beginning of your course, and let them know that it works, and therefore you will never take "forgot my password" as an excuse.

One more thought... you can always check the logs for a student to see when they last succeeded logging in and what they have done.  If a student was into Moodle steadily, and then couldn't log in right before the exam, you will know more about what might be going on.  This reminds me, I once had as student claim that Moodle was not working ("last night").  I checked the logs and found many students doing their work during the claimed downtime.  So the logs are quite handy to have.

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Angelin Lalev -

The idea about logs will be very useful. Thanks very much!

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Marcus Green -
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I often have this need. Password recovery via email seems a reasonable option at first. However I have had two level 3 (A level/16 to 19 year old) students of ICT, within the last month who have had the problem "I don't have access to an email account". You are 17 years old in an affluent part of the UK and you have enrolled on an IT course (one was on a full time nothing but software development) and you don't have access to any email accounts at all?  You have forgotten your email password? Why not go through Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo password recovery? Oh they want to send a text to a mobile phone and you don't have a mobile phone?  Welcome to teacherville in FE City.

Now I am admin on the whole site every time I use Moodle so its not an issue. But if you have only been bothered once or twice by students with password problems you are very fortunate indeed.

 

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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Rick Jerz -
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Sometimes I take things for granted, like everyone having an email account.  Yep, if you don't have an email account, then the password recovery system will not work.  I wonder what email address would be entered into Moodle?

I know it sounds extreme to say that I have only been bothered twice or so, but it is true.  My IT department once said that over 50% of their Helpdesk calls involved resetting student passwords on their system.  I run Moodle completely separate (on my own virtual server), so it (of course) pleases me when my Moodle runs more smoothly than my university systems.  I just don't get bothered with students having password problems.  I wonder if this is because I have them self-register, and in this process, they see how easy it is to use Moodle.  Or maybe it's my video that I give to students showing them how to reset their password.  I really don't know.

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Allowing teachers to reset passwords of students, enrolled into their courses

by Marcus Green -
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I have got used to entering an entirely ficticious email address as it is easier for me, but not so good if and when they loose/forget or allow the dog to eat their password. Luckily, like you Rick I run my own entirely separate server so it is not actually a problem, but I can see how it can be for others.

I heard of a nice example of a stupid tech support call this week. An experienced user called in the support people because he could not get the overhead display working. The polite tech support person kindly plugged the cable back into the port. The name of the person who made the call..... yes, me, moi, myself Marcus Green,

 

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