We are having a problem. Once an account has been established, our students cannot change their usernames. They can change the passwords, just not the usernames.
The edit screen comes up (attached), but when they try to edit their usernames, they get an error. It seems that Moodle always tells them that their password and username do not match and the editing fails. We have tried changing only the user name, leaving out the original password, etc., but all fields are required.
Any advice for us?
Thanks,
Art Lader
Aiken High School
That screen is only for changing the password, not username.
There was a reason originally for why students shouldn't change usernames but for the life of me I can not remember what it was.
I filed a feature request: http://moodle.org/bugs/bug.php?op=show&bugid=954
Allowing students to change their usernames is certainly not a good idea if some external authentication method is used. Even in case students self-register, I think it's not a good idea. It would create all sorts of logistical problems. For instance, usernames must be unique. Also if students are allowed to change all of their data, how can you keep track of the identity of the students? For instance I had one student (in a class of 300) who kept changing his first and last name to all kinds of weird things: e.g. Godzilla, The Box.
Hmmm... You are probably right... We are not using an external db, but still... Well, the sysadmin **can** go in and change their usernames... Sigh...
The bottom line is, we are trying all sorts of stuff to get around the requirement for students to have an e-mail address. Many of our students do not, and their parents do not want them to have one. Any thoughts about this?
Thanks,
Art Lader
Aiken HS
The bottom line is, we are trying all sorts of stuff to get around the requirement for students to have an e-mail address. Many of our students do not, and their parents do not want them to have one. Any thoughts about this?
Thanks,
Art Lader
Aiken HS
Most modern Unix systems have an account called "nobody", such that all email to this account is silently discarded. They also allow the variation: nobody+something, which means that you can give these students of yours unique email addresses of this type.
Hi,
I did not know about the "nobody" account. That's sure to come in handy.
But they still won't be able to confirm their accounts, I think, if they sign up with one of these e-mail addresses. Or am I missing something?
Thanks,
Art Lader
Aiken High School
I did not know about the "nobody" account. That's sure to come in handy.
But they still won't be able to confirm their accounts, I think, if they sign up with one of these e-mail addresses. Or am I missing something?
Thanks,
Art Lader
Aiken High School
Hi Art,
I am also having the same problem where people do not want to put their email in or they don't have one so they are just making them up.
As reguards to the user name problem it is a good idea that pupils cannot change it because you need to know who they are so that you can keep a track of what they are up to.
What do other people think about this issue.
Hello, Graham,
Yes, I can see that you are right about the problems of letting students change their usernames... I need to think about this some more... I am getting a little headache from all this thinking...
best regards,
Art Lader
Aiken High School
Yes, I can see that you are right about the problems of letting students change their usernames... I need to think about this some more... I am getting a little headache from all this thinking...
best regards,
Art Lader
Aiken High School
If a user sees this screen, he thinks that he can change the field for username. (wrong clue)
- I first tried to replace the input of this (and other fields) with echo, but sometimes Moodle needs it as input..
- Now I change the input attribute: input type="hidden" and it echoes the content
We give every student a school emailadress.
this email is always of the format: <username>@<schoolname><country>
The input field of this emailadress is also fixed with the hidden attribute.
(On the personal profile page we added/explain in HTML what the student can do to forward from this emaibox to his own hotmail or so.)
Hi, Ger,
When we use the wonderful uploaduser.php script to create accounts, we are able to use one e-mail address for multiple students. So, our thinking was that we could just create a bunch of dummy accounts and let the students edit them later. It works fine, but some of them want to change their usernames.
The simple solution, of course, would be to just tell them that they cannot change their user names, but we want everything about Moodle to be easy and nice for them. The word "Moodle" should make them smile.
But I am beginning to see the wisdom of not letting them change their usernames. And in the few cases where it turns into a real problem, the sysadmin can change the usernames.
The problem is not Moodle, really. It's our school system. Our students are not allowed to receive e-mail at school, so everything becomes very complicated.
Oh, well. Life is supposed to be interesting!
Best regards,
Art Lader
Aiken High School
When we use the wonderful uploaduser.php script to create accounts, we are able to use one e-mail address for multiple students. So, our thinking was that we could just create a bunch of dummy accounts and let the students edit them later. It works fine, but some of them want to change their usernames.
The simple solution, of course, would be to just tell them that they cannot change their user names, but we want everything about Moodle to be easy and nice for them. The word "Moodle" should make them smile.
But I am beginning to see the wisdom of not letting them change their usernames. And in the few cases where it turns into a real problem, the sysadmin can change the usernames.
The problem is not Moodle, really. It's our school system. Our students are not allowed to receive e-mail at school, so everything becomes very complicated.
Oh, well. Life is supposed to be interesting!
Best regards,
Art Lader
Aiken High School
We would like to let users change their usernames, just like they can change the passwords / e-mail.
This would not disrupt other processes because gradebooks are tracked per first and last name. If they change their first and last name to something wonky, they simply don't get credit for their assignments.
When they change their username, it would check to see if the username exists.
I voted for the following feature request:
Did you ever permission to change student usernames. I too want students to be able to change their usernames and would be very interested in any solution that you have found
Kind regards
Mark