Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Frank Black -
Number of replies: 8

Moodle v3.2

Can anyone explain why it makes sense that, if you don't want teachers to edit the course settings, the permission to stop them from doing so (course:update) also prevents them from editing the Topic headings in the course?

I don't understand why those two capabilities are linked, and it's annoying not being able to prevent teachers from editing the course format without hindering their ability to edit the *content* of the course.

Is this a bug, or is there a reason for it that I can't fathom?

Thanks.

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

There's quite a few situations I can think of where an existing capability has been used to protect some functionality where it may not have been the most logical choice. 

More a feature than a bug

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Frank Black -


Thanks. I've put an entry on the tracker about it.

Unless there is a programming limitation behind it, the permissions for the course settings and section headings should not be linked at all.

I think it may have been a mistake, rather than a decision.

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

mistakes and decisions are on a spectrum wink

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Frank Black -

Indeed.

The issue has been posted in the tracker here if anyone feels like voting it up.

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

If you really mean it... you would need to confirm that this issue exists in 3.3 and 3.4 as there is no chance a change like that would be made in a stable branch. There may be some people out there who rely on it working like it does. 

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Frank Black -

> there is no chance a change like that would be made in a stable branch.

The stable branch is 3.2? And the stable version doesn't get patched?


> you would need to confirm that this issue exists in 3.3 and 3.4

Thank you. I confirmed it on the Mount Orange test site - they're running 3.3. I've added that to the tracker.


> There may be some people out there who rely on it working like it does.

I've wracked my brains trying to think of a case-use for it's current behaviour, and I can't think of even one. But I can easily think of situations where an institution has set up the courses how they want them presented, and do not want the individual teachers to change the settings - only to curate the course.

Doesn't it seem very bizarre to you that locking the course settings allows the teacher to carry on doing anything and everything to the course, except edit the section headings? I honestly can't see any connection. I'd certainly like to hear what a couple of devs think about it. Maybe they can see some rationale in the code, or maybe they can spot a mistake. It would be nice to know either way.


Thanks for all your help recently by the way. I'm getting there... slowly. I start work again tomorrow though. That's going to slow me down to a crawl.

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

It doesn't matter.... it's a functional change. That would only occur on a new branch - 3.4, 3.5 etc. 

A bug it is not. It doesn't matter what I think. I'm inclined to agree with you but there has to be a limit to the granularity of capabilities. From what I've seen there is usually gentle resistance to adding extra ones. But you never know...

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Why does the 'course:update' permission prevent teachers from editing the topic headings?

by Frank Black -

> From what I've seen there is usually gentle resistance to adding extra ones


I don't want to add a new capability. I'm going to reflect that in the tracker.

If editing the section headings has to be bundled with another capability, then the two most appropriate ones would be:

Move sections (moodle/course:movesections) OR 'control section visibility' (moodle/course:sectionvisibility)

If you trust your teachers to move sections around or control their visibility, then you probably trust them to edit the headings too. Whereas accessing the course settings is another beast entirely!

Thanks for your feedback.

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