Down to earth explanation of Roles

Down to earth explanation of Roles

by Duncan Walker -
Number of replies: 7

I've used Moodle for quite a while now and worked from 1.5 up to 1.8. I think the advancements are great in each release, but my one problem with it all is, where's the documentation for all the new features !?

Forums are fantastic, but I'd really like to know how the whole "Roles" thing works. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ! Can someone out there give us an idea of how it works. I keep thinking that I can use roles to restrict access to forums, courses and various other things, kind of like Groups, but it never seems to work. I set courses to have a default role of "parent" for example and then try and create a user as a default "parent" in a hope that they are the only people that can access the course. Not the case  :o(

I'd love a flow diagram or some form of visual explanation of what Roles do and don't do. Am I seeing Roles as something that they aren't ?

It would be nice to be able to set the role of a user when they're first created, as it seems odd that you have to create them first and then set their role by selecting them from a list.

It would be great to see maybe a Flash tutorial on how to set up a classic scenario with Roles, such as the Parent and Student scenario. I'm sure many users would greatly appreciate such a tutorial.

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In reply to Duncan Walker

Re: Down to earth explanation of Roles

by Wen Hao Chuang -
I second this... Is there a branch of moodle 1.8 that does NOT include the current Roles implementation? It would be a great idea to have such a option (for admin admin) to enable or disable this feature.
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In reply to Duncan Walker

Re: Down to earth explanation of Roles

by Martin Dougiamas -
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Have you tried the context help on those pages?

http://moodle.org/help.php?module=moodle&file=roles.html


Also see http://docs.moodle.org/en/Roles and note the table of contents to the right.

I'd appreciate people working further on those pages ... some Howtos, Flash tutorials etc would be nice.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Down to earth explanation of Roles

by Duncan Walker -
Thanks Martin.

I appreciate that there is some form of documentation and it's certainly a good start, but I feel like I often need a programming degree to understand what it all means.

I come from a IT based background and understand that the people doing the programming often write documentation in a form that they understand, but not always in a form that can be understood by your general non programmer type.

I can see the Roles part of Moodle is very complex and I'm certain it's not an easy concept to explain. Maybe it's too complex, maybe it's trying to do too many things on too many levels ? Sometimes less is better.

Am I right in thinking that if I set up a "Parent" role and then set the default role type in the construction page of a Course to "Parent"; then people who are assigned the role of "Parent" are allowed access and no one else ?

I think my main confusion is how it's implemented and can it be used as a simple form of access restriction, be it related to a course, forum or even a quiz ?
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In reply to Duncan Walker

Re: Down to earth explanation of Roles

by Helen Foster -
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Hi Duncan,

Regarding the default role setting in the course settings, I guess you've read the help file: "This role is what people get when no role is explicitly assigned, such as when people are self-enrolling in your course using a password..." This setting does not restrict course enrolment access.

However, you are right in thinking that Roles are a way of restricting access. For example, if you wish to restrict students from starting new discussions in a particular forum, then you can set an override and prevent the capability for students to "Start new discussions".

If you wish to restrict course enrolment access, then I think the easiest way is to do the same as in earlier versions of Moodle - set a course enrolment key.

You're also right about Roles being very complex. wide eyes Everyone has different ideas of what they wish to accomplish with Roles. Perhaps you could explain a little of what you would like?
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In reply to Duncan Walker

Re: Down to earth explanation of Roles

by Filip Giesz -
I really agree with this. I'm coming from 15+ years of administration and the roles (or maybe just the implementation) leave *a lot* to be desired.

Earlier today I set up moodle for the first time and created an administrator account. Everything went smoothly - added some courses, etc. Sometime later, I must have clicked on some button that made my role to 'student' - and now I'm royally screwed. Let me explain:

I'm logged in (and can login/out) as "admin" but I can't even access the role page - I get a *perfectly* blank page. Specifically, when I log in, I get a BLANK page. Nothing on it (view source). That is, http://<URL>/login/index.php gives ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. In theory, I have 6 courses (which don't start till August) don't have any students or teachers. Going back in history gives me "noaccess" or some such error in a red box. I can't do *anything*. This behavior is really quite stupid. Ex. http://<URL>/admin/auth.php
gives me "accessdenied" logged in as admin - how stupid is that?!?!!

So, do I delete the whole thing ("reinstall", using Windows terminology) or is there some hidden backdoor that will make admin be behave like an 'admin'? I only added 6 courses so will only loose a few hours work.

Cheers,
Fil

P.S. I'm waiting with baited breath for the programmers defense of this behavior smile
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In reply to Filip Giesz

Re: Down to earth explanation of Roles

by Filip Giesz -
Or, to narrow down my complaint, why is the *only* 'admin' account allowed by moodle to hang himself by resetting his or her role to 'student'? Why not a simple check for this? A "do you really want to do this" is insufficient.

I do understand that I can do pretty much the same thing by editing /etc/passwd (i.e., screw myself in the way it appears I have), I have yet to see *one* administration UI/wrapper that allows one to do this to the 'root' account! Such functionality is always disabled for root.

So, can someone give me a scenario where it is a *good* thing when an installation of moodle looses its only admin account and doesn't have any students or teachers? smile

Cheers,
Fil
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In reply to Filip Giesz

Re: Down to earth explanation of Roles

by Dru Darby -

Why would you click to change your role to student? 

Shouldn't you set a master password to the admin account, and leave it alone--creating a second admin account for yourself and using the original only for emergencies?

I don't understand why you made yourself a student.

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