Setting Plugin Permissions by Course or Course Category

Setting Plugin Permissions by Course or Course Category

by Mike Simurdiak -
Number of replies: 5

I was wondering if it is possible to limit the availability of a plugin based on a course or a course category.  We might be looking to try out the VeriCite plagiarism plugin, but we only want to make it available to certain users.  It seems that if there is a way to do this based on either a course or course category, then that would be great.  Does anyone know how to do this?


It seems that if a plugin is installed that it is available to everyone.


If it is possible to limit a plugin's use by user too, than they might work also.


Thank you!

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In reply to Mike Simurdiak

Re: Setting Plugin Permissions by Course or Course Category

by Richard Oelmann -
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You can certainly make plugins available by user - just alter the permissions for the role(s) you want to be able to use it (you may want to create a specific role for this if its a pilot project).

I don't think there's any way to restrict a plugin to a specific course or category.

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In reply to Mike Simurdiak

Re: Setting Plugin Permissions by Course or Course Category

by Jon Bolton -
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If you want to restrict it at course level, you'll need to create a special role that can be given to relevant individuals through Course Administration > Users > Enrolled Users.

You can duplicate and rename one of the existing roles and tweak the permissions quite easily.

But first, go to Site Administration > Users > Permissions > Define Roles and check if the plugin has capabilities defined that can be altered for different roles.

If not...

If it's a block, try the instructions at https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=318747#p1278630

If it's an activity or resource, try restricting access by user profile field and use a unique value in an appropriate field for the relevant users.

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In reply to Jon Bolton

Re: Setting Plugin Permissions by Course or Course Category

by Mike Simurdiak -

I appreciate the replies, but unless I am missing something, it does not look like any of those methods work for restricting access to this plugin.


I am a little confused on how the user profile field can work to restrict access to this plugin.

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In reply to Mike Simurdiak

Re: Setting Plugin Permissions by Course or Course Category

by Emma Richardson -
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It is not the user profile field.  You need to go to Admin/Users/Permissions/Roles.  Create a new role that has permission to access this plugin.  Then remove the permission to use the plugin from your other roles (editing teacher, non-editing teacher etc.  Then assign those users that you want to have access to the plugin to the new role that you created.  You can make the role assignable at the system, category or course level.

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In reply to Mike Simurdiak

Re: Setting Plugin Permissions by Course or Course Category

by Jon Bolton -
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I've read your original post again - and looked at the documentation for VeriCite at https://moodle.org/plugins/view/plagiarism_vericite. The plugin allows students to see it as well as teachers - but you can restrict student access in the settings of the plugin.

But in general, all of the methods mentioned above will restrict access in some way. It depends on the plugin and the level of restriction you want to acheive.

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