Hi,
I would like to ask for some clarification on Role Assignment / Role Renaming within courses.
The following scenario has occurred on our site and I think it offers a potential headache...
A Teacher (Chalky White) logs in and enters a course where he has the 'teacher' role.
In 'Course: Administration->Assign Roles' he can attribute to any user any role that is lesser than his own role - i.e any role below 'teacher' in the pecking order set by system administration (Note: I have been careful to add in his ability to assign any extra roles - non legacy roles - where these fall below 'teacher' in the pecking order).
In 'Course: Administration->Settings' he can scroll right to the bottom of the settings table and exploit a panel rather loosely entitled 'Roles'. He is surprised to find that he is not listed as the Teacher here, so he adds his name against Teacher, or even against Course Creator. (After all, Chalky didn't see his own name as 'teacher' in the Assign Roles panel - because he can't see any assignments at his role level or above!)
What has happened? Well, as far as he is concerned nothing appears to have changed. But when next the Administrator looks at 'Assign Roles' on that course there is the most oddball result: the Role of teacher is now called...
Chalky White (Chalky White)
...and what the teacher was doing was renaming a role in a panel that looks like he was assigning a role!
Questions:
1. Why is does this panel exist (particularly at a course level)? Likely because in some schools 'students' are called 'pupils' up to 16 years, but not after.
2. Why is it not clear that this is renaming not assigning?
3. How does the administrator remove this panel (or rather access to it), as disallowing 'Create/Manage Roles' doesn't have any affect on this panel?
4. And why 'Chalky White (Chalky White)'? Maybe it was renamed 'Chalky White', by Chalky White??? No, I've tested that, and it will be named that way even if another teacher types it!
Any comments on this one?
Regards and thanks,
John
Hi, some quick answers:
1) Individual teachers want to display the same roles by different names (aliases). eg Teacher / Facilitator / Guide / Mentor etc.
2) I'm surprised it looks like assigning a role, but I agree it would be a lot clearer if the section was called "Role aliases". Plus there should be help there. See MDL-14738
3) It's not really related to creating roles ...
4) The name (name) thing was a regression (bug) in 1.9 release, since fixed: MDL-11323
1) Individual teachers want to display the same roles by different names (aliases). eg Teacher / Facilitator / Guide / Mentor etc.
2) I'm surprised it looks like assigning a role, but I agree it would be a lot clearer if the section was called "Role aliases". Plus there should be help there. See MDL-14738
3) It's not really related to creating roles ...
4) The name (name) thing was a regression (bug) in 1.9 release, since fixed: MDL-11323
Martin,
Thanks for your speedy response and especially for the "Role Aliases" & help button action, this will be very much appreciated.
Back on the 4 questions for just a moment...
1. Creating an alias: I can see the flexibility Moodle offers the Teacher
2. Looks like an assignment: It even fooled me to begin with!
The article "Course Settings" gives the correct information, although...
"In Moodle 1.9 onwards, you can change the words for different roles in your course."
...is a little vague?
3. Not actually creating a role: I agree, but if a Site has a policy where such changes are not approved (or are accomplished by creating new roles that are generally duplicates of others) can this panel be switched off? I mention this particularly because any teacher can assign an alias to any role - including those above him in the system "pecking order" - whereas he cannot (by default) assign any such role to a user.
4. Name (name): Having read MDL-11323 I now understand what the name (name) was meant to look like. I'll check with our provider about moving up from 1.9+ (20080409) to the latest build, or wait for 1.9.1.
Thanks again,
John
Thanks for your speedy response and especially for the "Role Aliases" & help button action, this will be very much appreciated.
Back on the 4 questions for just a moment...
1. Creating an alias: I can see the flexibility Moodle offers the Teacher
2. Looks like an assignment: It even fooled me to begin with!
The article "Course Settings" gives the correct information, although...
"In Moodle 1.9 onwards, you can change the words for different roles in your course."
...is a little vague?
3. Not actually creating a role: I agree, but if a Site has a policy where such changes are not approved (or are accomplished by creating new roles that are generally duplicates of others) can this panel be switched off? I mention this particularly because any teacher can assign an alias to any role - including those above him in the system "pecking order" - whereas he cannot (by default) assign any such role to a user.
4. Name (name): Having read MDL-11323 I now understand what the name (name) was meant to look like. I'll check with our provider about moving up from 1.9+ (20080409) to the latest build, or wait for 1.9.1.
Thanks again,
John
Hi John,
Thanks for highlighting this area of confusion.
I suggest we call the section "Role renaming", rather than "Role aliases". Please see MDL-14738 for my suggested help file wording. Any comments / suggestions for improvement would be appreciated.
I've also updated the course settings documentation. Please feel free to add to / edit the text if further explanation is required.
I agree with you that it's less than ideal for a teacher to be able to rename any role including ones which (s)he cannot assign. However, it doesn't seem possible to shorten the list of roles, since we don't know which ones are used in the course.
Thanks for highlighting this area of confusion.
I suggest we call the section "Role renaming", rather than "Role aliases". Please see MDL-14738 for my suggested help file wording. Any comments / suggestions for improvement would be appreciated.
I've also updated the course settings documentation. Please feel free to add to / edit the text if further explanation is required.
I agree with you that it's less than ideal for a teacher to be able to rename any role including ones which (s)he cannot assign. However, it doesn't seem possible to shorten the list of roles, since we don't know which ones are used in the course.
Hi Helen,
Thanks for taking this forward.
Because I did not instantly follow what you meant in the suggested context help in MDL-14738, I wondered if you would consider the following sentence...
"If the renamed role is one that the Administrator has selected as a course manager role, then the new role name will also appear with your course title."
...Alternatively, you may just regard me as a bit dense!
Thanks again,
John
Thanks for taking this forward.
Because I did not instantly follow what you meant in the suggested context help in MDL-14738, I wondered if you would consider the following sentence...
"If the renamed role is one that the Administrator has selected as a course manager role, then the new role name will also appear with your course title."
...Alternatively, you may just regard me as a bit dense!
Thanks again,
John
Hi John,
Thanks for your suggested improvement which I've incorporated into the help file and the course settings documentation.
Thanks for your suggested improvement which I've incorporated into the help file and the course settings documentation.
Hello Hellen, hello John,
We wrote a tiny patch to shorten the list of role names for customization to only those
roles which are assignable by this particular user (teacher/admin/...). We hope this "fits".
Please have a look at: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-18854
Jens
We wrote a tiny patch to shorten the list of role names for customization to only those
roles which are assignable by this particular user (teacher/admin/...). We hope this "fits".
Please have a look at: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-18854
Jens