User Roles and Access rights in Moodle

All active staff and students can access UNSW Moodle using their zID and zPass. Which courses they see once they login depends on what user roles they have been given via systems such as MyUNSW.

Award Course(s): Staff/student access is setup through the Learning Management tab in MyUNSW, and is typically managed by faculty/school TELT Administrators. Changes made in MyUNSW flow to Moodle overnight.

NCAR Courses like eLISE: User access is setup by the Academic Admin department within MyUNSW, and flow to Moodle overnight.

SCAR Courses like OH&S: User access is setup by the UNSW HR department within PIMS, and flow to Moodle overnight.

Sandpit Courses: The staff member creating the sandpit course either assigns roles at creation, or organises the creation of a self-enrolment key for ongoing access.

For more information on any of these, please our Moodle Course Types page.

Instructors have access to most features and functions in a course, allowing them to perform design, development, teaching and maintenance tasks, including course backup and rollover.

Instructor role limitations

The instructor role is not permitted to:

• Create courses
• Enrol users (e.g. staff/students/guests) in a course. If they are academic staff they can, however, add staff to a course in myUNSW. Follow these instructions.
  • For permission (in both myUNSW and Moodle) to do this, apply to Academic Administration. Your Head of School or Associate Dean, Education, will have to sign off on your application.
• Change imported course data that comes from the Student/People Information Management Systems (SIMS/PIMS)
• Restore a copy of a course with all the staff/student enrolments.

The Student View - Switch Role

Instructors can view their own courses as a generic student would see them using the 'switch role' functionality. This is particularly useful when building a course to ensure it comes out as desired. To do this, please see the following instructions:

1. Located on the top right, select the drop-down arrow beside your displayed name and click Switch role to. 
   
   
    
2. On the following page, click Student.
   
   
    
3. View the part of the course you need to view as a student.
4. When you have completed viewing the course as a student, click Return to my normal role at the top right of the page by selecting the drop-down arrow.
   
   

Switch role is a very useful tool, but is not always a perfect representation of what students will see. Individual students may see something different due to their personal circumstances, and some tools (typically external tools) may not work well with switch role.

The Student View - Log-In-As

Instructors can view their own courses as a specific student would see it by using the 'log-in-as' functionality. This is particularly useful when helping a student with a query. To do this, please see the following instructions:

1. Located on the left hand side, in the Settings block, under the Course administration heading and User sub-heading, click Enrolled users.
   
   
    
2. On the user listing page, click on the desired students name.
   
   
    
3. On the user profile page, under the Administration heading, click on the Log in as button.
   
   
    
4. View the part of the course you need to view as the particular student.
5. When you have completed viewing the course as a student, click Log Out at the top right of the page by selecting the drop-down arrow.
   
   
    
6. Note, you will need to log back into Moodle as yourself.

Reliability of Log-In-As

Due to a security vulnerability identified/patched in April 2019, the Log-In-As view is no longer as reliable as it once was. The security patch hides specific tools / functionality from the log-in-as view, though they continue working perfectly fine for students/staff in their normal view. This includes:

• Services inserted into a Moodle course via embed code (also known as iframe)
  • Example of services that support embed codes include theBox, H5P and Youtube
• Stack Quiz Questions

The TELT Administrator role functionality is quite extensive, which in Moodle consists of an equivalent or higher level of access a Instructor has at the course level, plus category (eg. faculty/school) level access that allows them to work across courses. TELT Administrators also work heavily in MyUNSW within the Learning Management tab, where they create courses and assign staff enrolments.

One useful support page for staff is listed here.

The Student / Instructor View - Switch Role

TELT Administrators can view courses within their category as a generic student/instructor would see them by using the 'switch role' functionality. This is particularly useful when helping Instructors to build a course to ensure it comes out as desired. To do this, please see the following instructions:

1. Located on the top right, select the drop-down arrow beside your displayed name and click Switch role to. 
   
   
    
2. On the following page, click the appropriate role.
   
   
    
3. View the part of the course you need to view as a student.
4. When you have completed viewing the course as a student, click Return to my normal role at the top right of the page by selecting the drop-down arrow.
   
   
    

Switch role is a very useful tool, but is not always a perfect representation of what students will see. Individual students may see something different due to their personal circumstances, and some tools (typically external tools) may not work well with switch role.

The Student / Instructor View - Log-In-As

TELT Administrators can view their own courses as a specific student/instructor would see it by using the 'log-in-as' functionality. This is particularly useful when helping a student or instructor with a query. To do this, please see the following instructions:

1. Located on the left hand side, in the Settings block, under the Course administration heading and User sub-heading, click Enrolled users.
   
   
    
2. On the user listing page, click on the desired students name.
   
   
    
3. On the user profile page, under the Administration heading, click on the Log in as button.
   
   
    
4. View the part of the course you need to view as the particular student.
5. When you have completed viewing the course as a student, click Log Out at the top right of the page by selecting the drop-down arrow.
   
   
    
6. Note, you will need to log back into Moodle as yourself.

Reliability of Log-In-As

Due to a security vulnerability identified/patched in April 2019, the Log-In-As view is no longer as reliable as it once was. The security patch hides specific tools / functionality from the log-in-as view, though they continue working perfectly fine for students/staff in their normal view. This includes:

• Services inserted into a Moodle course via embed code (also known as iframe)
  • Example of services that support embed codes include theBox, H5P and Youtube
• Stack Quiz Questions

How a TELT Administrator can assign the Question Sharer role

TELT Administrators can now assign the Question Sharer role to users. 

Steps to assign Question Sharer role:

1. Log in to Moodle as the TELT Administrator. 
2. Access the course categories list by clicking Navigation > My Courses > UNSWA - University of New South Wales.
   
   
    
3. Select the appropriate Faculty or School level to which the instructor needs Question Sharer access.
   
   
    
4. Click on Settings and select Assign Roles
   
   
    
5. Then click on the Question Sharer under the roles list. 
6. On the next page search for the user's zID on the bottom right and select the correct user from the list. Then click Add. 
   
   
    
7. The users with the Question Sharer role should show up in the list on the left hand side of the page.
   
   

The Teaching Assistant and Tutor roles are given to staff who assist Instructors with delivering a course, but do not need the full permissions to a course that Instructor(s) need. The roles are roughly intended for these purposes:

• Teaching Assistant - A high powered role, which shares most permissions of the Instructor and can grade students at the gradebook level.
• Grading Tutor - A role provided to staff who assist student learning and who grade students at the activity level
• Non-Grading Tutor - A role provided to staff who assist student learning but does not grade students

Summary Table of Teaching Assistant and Tutor permissions

• To grade an assignment, a Grading Tutor clicks the assignment's heading link in the Gradebook, or accesses the assignment’s Grading summary page using the assignment link on the course home page. A Non-Grading Tutor can only access the assignment’s Grading summary page from the link on the course main page. From the Grading summary page, both a Grading and a Non-Grading Tutor click View/grade all submissions. The marks they enter on the assignment's Grading page will display in the Gradebook.
   
• A Grading Tutor can override quiz grades in exactly the same way as Instructor or Teaching Assistant can - the only difference is that, because a Grading Tutor cannot edit the Gradebook, they cannot change the quiz grade just by changing the total in the gradebook. To re-grade a quiz, an Instructor, a Teaching Assistant or a Grading Tutor must click the quiz link from inside the Grader report. A Non-Grading tutor cannot view the Grader report, so they cannot re-grade a quiz.

Teaching Assistant Role

Teaching Assistants have similar privileges to Instructors, but they cannot:

• control course availability
• perform course rollover tasks

They have full access to all functions within the course files area, including deletion of files. They also have access to the Moodle Gradebook.

Grading Tutors Role

Grading Tutors have permissions within Moodle as follows:

• No Turn editing on button displays to them, so they may not edit resources, activities etc.
• In the Gradebook, they can use the Separate Groups filter to view the grades for the entire class or for individual groups. That is, they are not restricted to viewing only the student records in the group they have been added to themselves, but can see all student records in all groups.
• They can access to all student submissions, not just those of their own group. They can filter the view by selecting a group from the Separate Groups drop-down list and see submissions by all students in that group.
• They can grade assignments for all groups. However, if you set up students in groups and make the assignments group assignments,  Grading Tutors can filter the list of submissions by their group and grade only the assignment submissions for their group.
• They cannot edit the Gradebook. Grading Tutors can only grade assignments using the View/grade all submissions link on the assignment grading page - they cannot perform any grade administration.
• They cannot log in as any another user.
• Can see the full list of students and staff in the Participants list.

Non-Grading Tutors Role

Non-Grading Tutors can access all content and use most tools in the same way as students.

They cannot edit course content, however, and they have no grading capabilities.

Student Role

Students have access to all the features and functions they need to complete their learning activities in a course.

Auditor role

An Auditor has access to Moodle content and most tools, but can only do so in read-only mode. Auditor typically does not gain access to plugin services, like UNSW Lecture Recordings⁺, Turnitin or theBox.

A in-depth comparison of the Auditor and Guest roles can be found here.

Guest role

Guest access can now be enabled for non-award courses.

Enabling guest access allows users external to UNSW to view your course materials within Moodle. These users will access content anonymously but will not be able to participate in activities that require an identity within Moodle. For example: Assignment submissions and Forum posts.

Guest access for courses require approval from the Head of Organisational Unit.

You can request guest access to be added to new or existing courses by completing the online Moodle Guest Access Course Request form. Requests will be processed within 48 business hours.

A comparison of the Auditor and Guest roles can be found here.

TELT Administrators have access to assign the Question Sharer role to users. 

To access the Question Categories, 

1. From the course page go to settings and in the Course Administration list select Question Bank.
   
   
    
2. From here you can access the available question category based on the access level.