A role is a collection of permissions that you can assign to specific users in specific contexts. The combination of roles and context defines a user's abilities on any page. The most common examples are the roles of student and teacher in the context of a course. CLE course participants, including UCSF (students, faculty, and staff), have specific roles which dictate what can and cannot be done in a CLE course.
Role Descriptions
The following roles are used in CLE courses; see below for detailed role descriptions.
Courses are managed by Category Managers, who can perform actions higher than that of Managers and Instructors. If you are a Manager or Instructor and need to change something in your course but don't have the ability, please connect with your Category Manager.
Manager
- Managers can access courses and modify them (essentially do anything), but they usually do not participate in courses. The Manager role is designed to provide course administration staff (typically not Instructors) with the ability to manage courses. Managers do not receive email notifications (e.g., for forum posts). Managers can log in as (i.e., masquerade) other users in the courses they manage. The Manager role can assign the Instructor role. Managers can assign the following roles: Instructor, Course Assistant, Content Assistant, Grading Assistant, Student, Participant, SOM Course Staff
Instructor
- Instructors can do anything within a course, including adding and modifying the activities and resources, and grading students. Users with the Instructor role are listed in course summaries. Instructors cannot assign the Instructor role but can assign the following roles: Course Assistant, Content Assistant, Grading Assistant, Student, Participant
Course Assistant
- Course Assistants can do almost everything an Instructor can do within a course, including changing the activities and grading students. Course Assistants cannot assign roles with editing capabilities. The Course Assistant role can also be assigned at the category level by Category Managers. Course Assistants can assign the following roles: Student, Participant
Content Assistant
- The Content Assistant role can do a subset of what the Course Assistant role can do within a course. Content Assistants can add and modify resources and activities, add/edit questions and quizzes, add/edit questionnaires, edit course settings, and add/modify/delete blocks. Course Assistants cannot grade quizzes or assignments or access the gradebook. Content Assistants can assign the following roles: Student, Participant
Grading Assistant
- The Grading Assistant role can do a subset of what the Course Assistant role can do. Grading Assistants can grade students (quizzes, assignments) and can access the gradebook. Grading assistants cannot add or modify resources or activities, and cannot assign roles.
Student
- Students can access resources and activities, as well as view their grades. Students cannot modify resources and activities, and cannot assign roles.
Participant
- Participants have fewer privileges than students. Participants can unenroll themselves from courses (when self- or manually-enrolled) and can participate in forums. Participants cannot take quizzes or submit assignments and do not appear in the gradebook. Participant role can be assigned by course manager, instructor, instructor (unlisted), course assistant, and content assistant. Category Managers can also assign the Participant role at the category level.
Instructor (unlisted)
- This role (formerly known as SOM Course Staff) replicates the Instructor role, but users with this role are not listed in course overviews. Instructor (unlisted) can do anything within a course, including adding, modifying, and deleting resources and activities, and grading students. Instructors (unlisted) can assign these roles: Course Assistant, Content Assistant, Grading Assistant, Student, Participant
No Role
- If no role is assigned, then the user can only access course content (resources, files, etc.). Course activities (e.g., forums, assignments, quizzes) are not accessible. The user will also not appear in the grade book.
Switching Roles
The "Switch role to" feature in CLE allows users with Manager roles to switch temporarily to another role from the user menu 'Switch role' so that they can see what the course would look like to someone with that role. Switching roles is not perfect because you remain the same user, and your user may not have things like grades, which will make some students' views look different than a real student might see.
Please follow these instructions to view your CLE site in a different role:
1. Go to https://courses.ucsf.edu/ and log in.
2. Enter your course site (under my courses or by searching) and select your course.
3. Locate the arrow located next to your name in the upper right-hand corner and click on it.
4. From the user dropdown menu select Switch role to.
5. On the next screen select the role that you wish to switch to.
6. In the right upper corner under your name, you will see the role that you selected.
Special Roles
The following are special roles that can be assigned as noted to provide extra capabilities:
Cohort Manager
- Cohort Managers can only manage (create, modify, delete) cohorts at the category level. This role has no other capabilities; therefore, if users with this role need other capabilities within courses, they need be to assigned other roles (e.g., Course Assistant, Content Assistant, Instructor). Only Category Managers can assign Cohort Managers, and only at the category level within their categories.
Ilios Sync User
- An Ilios Sync User can apply and configure the Ilios sync enrollment plugin. This role has no other capabilities; therefore, it must be co-assigned with other roles. The Ilios Sync User can only be co-assigned with roles that can manage course enrollment: Manager, Instructor, Course Assistant, and Content Assistant. Note: While the Ilios Sync User role can be co-assigned with other roles (e.g., Grading Assistant, Student) these other roles will not be able to assign the Ilios sync enrollment plugin since they can't access Enrollment Methods. Only Category Managers can assign the Ilios Sync User role. The role can be assigned at the category level, or the course level.
Question Builder
- The Question Builder role allows the user to add and modify questions stored in category-level question bank categories. In addition, the user also has access to, and can therefore use, these questions when building quizzes. This role can only be assigned at the category level, and only by a Category Manager. Since question categories can only be accessed from within courses, and since this role has no other capabilities, any user with the Question Builder role must also be assigned a role within a course (usually, Manager, Instructor, or Course Assistant). The course must be within the category where the Question Builder role was assigned.
Ilios Participant
- This is a very special role. It can only be assigned at the category level and only by site administrators. The assignment of the Ilios Participant role also only takes place using a special administrative plugin -- the Ilios Category Assignment tool. Using this role is a way to provide members of non-student Ilios users with participant-level access to all courses within a category. Ilios Participants assigned in this way are not actually enrolled in these courses. They appear as Other Users, not enrolled users (this mainly means that these courses will not appear in the users' course lists). For example, the School of Medicine is using this process to provide all non-student SOM Ilios users (over 4000 users), with access to all courses within the SOM category. As new non-student members are added to SOM Ilios, they are automatically synced to the SOM category.
Collaboration Roles
These roles are used in collaboration spaces (i.e., not regular academic courses).
Leader
- The Leader of a collaboration space has the highest level of capabilities within a space. It is analogous to the Instructor role. Leaders can assign the following roles: Leader, Member
Member
- A Member of a collaboration space has a lower level of capabilities within a space. It is analogous to the Student role.
Flex Roles
Flex roles allow Category Managers to provide extra capabilities to existing course roles. By using a flex role, course managers can extend user capabilities on a course-by-course basis. Flex roles can only be assigned by Category Managers.Multiple Flex Roles: Because there are three flex roles, it's possible to use more than one in a course. For example, in the same course, you might have one group of students that needs to download assignments, but you also have another group that needs to be able to author exam questions. You can assign one flex role for assignment downloads, and assign another for question authoring.
Role Assignments: Please note that flex roles can't be used to extend role assignments. Which roles can assign which roles are set at the system level. For example, if you want a role to be able to assign a role it can't by default (e.g., the Content Assistant role assigning the Instructor role), a flex role won't help in this situation.
Caveats: It might not be possible to create a flex role that can add a very specific capability. It will depend on whether the capabilities are granular enough. For example, in the assignment assistant example above, the permission change that was made will not only allow a student to download assignment submissions, but also access the grades for that assignment. It's not possible to prohibit assignment grade access without prohibiting assignment submission downloads. You will need to decide whether or not allowing assignment grade access is a problem.