Completely isolated courses

Completely isolated courses

by Hannu Mattila -
Number of replies: 10

Is it possible to build a Moodle (3.5) environment where the courses are completely isolated?

     • There is no list of courses on the Moodle front page before you log on. Only system logo or other image and login prompt.
     • After signing up, the teacher and the student will see their own courses, not the others.
     • Teachers and course users can see the list of users only in their course.
     • Usually, only the admin can add users to the site. In this case, the teacher should have this possibility. The teacher could add students to the site and only on their own course either by manual authentication or upload users in batches with a CSV file. No other authorization procedures are used.

Is this possible and what are the main Moodle settings?


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In reply to Hannu Mattila

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
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Hi Hannu

well, this is possible. Here, I explain how.


• There is no list of courses on the Moodle front page before you log on. Only system logo or other image and login prompt.

You can define that start site is visible only after login (site security - force login) or start page settings blocks after login and before login.

     • After signing up, the teacher and the student will see their own courses, not the others.

Set start page after login to Dashboard: Apperanace - Navigation Default home page

     • Teachers and course users can see the list of users only in their course.
This is standard. Disable block online users on start page and Dashboard.

     • Usually, only the admin can add users to the site. In this case, the teacher should have this possibility. The teacher could add students to the site and only on their own course either by manual authentication or upload users in batches with a CSV file. No other authorization procedures are used.

This is by default not possible. We created a not published course wizard. This allows teachers to create new courses based on templates and enrole users by mail address. If the mail address is registered the user is notified and enroled. If the user is not existing, a preliminary account is created and a notification is sent to the users mail address. You can test this block at moodle.3.de. Login with train | trainer and try the Course Wizard block (mail sending is disabled on this site). Please contact me private if you are interested in this plugin.


Ralf

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In reply to Hannu Mattila

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Emma Richardson -
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To add to a few things from the other response.

1. You can set the front page however you want it - with courses visible or invisible.  This does not mean however that they could not find a list of courses if they really want.  However, you can disable the navigation block which makes it a lot harder.  (Check Front Page Settings and Appearance/Navigation)

2.  Teachers and students have to first be registered with the site and then enrolled in courses.  The other poster was correct that teacher and student roles only see the users in their courses.  This does not apply to the messaging system however which is site wide (I think maybe this has been changed in the latest version however.) (Check authentication and enrollment documentation)

3.  You can edit the teacher role to allow user upload via csv or manual.  Giving them this role will allow them access to all users on the site.  (Site Admin/Users/Define Roles - check permissions documentation.)

 

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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
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Hi Emma

Interesting to read the idea of giving teachers permission for CSV user upload. I know its possible.

 Do you have practical experience with the model.

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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Emma Richardson -
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Not sure what you mean.  I have had sites that have given them permission.  Moodle is fully customizable with its permissions - you can pretty much allow anyone to do anything if you want.  You might also look at the bulk enrollment plugin which can be used to mass enroll via csv - useful if you want admin to create the users and teachers just to enroll them.

I normally will create a new role (you can create a role based on the teacher role) and then adjust it.  That way you still have the stock teacher role which is pretty much set up the way that the vast majority of sites need it to be.

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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
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Hello Emma,

The process is clear. We need a seperate role for all teachers with permission to use buld user upload via csv.  The seperate role is required because user management is a site feature but teacher normally will get teacher role in context course and not site.

In practical situation I see potential conflicts here. i.e. a teacher deletes a user via csv, a teacher uploads a list of users includig existing users and overwrites accidentially existing user settings etc.

These critical situations are the main reason why we mostly didn't give teacher this permission.

I was interested to hear  whether you have other experiences with  your model.

Ralf

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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Emma Richardson -
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Yes it is a problem.  I think the site we had it enabled on only had a few teachers so it wasn't such a big deal.  The best way is to have a document with screenshots showing them how to set the settings when they upload.  Or just keep the authentication at the admin level and then let them bulk enroll existing students.  You could always give them the csv template and just have them fill it out.

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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
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Thats the point. We give them only a text area to add the mail addresses of the participants (comma separated).

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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Kerstin Namuth -


"After signing up, the teacher and the student will see their own courses, not the others.

Set start page after login to Dashboard: Apperanace - Navigation Default home page"

I think they would still be able to show other user via Messages. Search for user or course displays all registered users, even suspended accounts. At least, I cannot find any way to limit results to "own courses".


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In reply to Kerstin Namuth

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Are you talking of this: Contacts tab in messaging provides list of all users (GDPR issue?) https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=376212 ?
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Completely isolated courses

by Kerstin Namuth -

Yes! That's the one.

I remember voting for the issue in the tracker, but must have missed the update. So that should be solved any week now.

Great news, thanks a lot for the link.

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