M06e - Guest access

Keywords: guest, enrolment, non-editing, read-only, view, access. non-UCL, visitor

What is it?

Guests are anyone who can access your course without enrolling or logging into Moodle first. Guests are restricted in terms of what they can do, i.e. they can't post into forums, submit assignments or do any kind of grading etc.

If you need to give someone a richer access to Moodle, we recommend you seek to get them a proper UCL account. Contact your departmental computer rep or senior administrator who should have rights to create these kinds of accounts.

Or, if you're actually creating a course that's targeted for an external audience then Guest access just might not be enough for you. UCL also has UCLeXtend - UCL's public-facing e-learning environment. If your cohort is more external than UCL-folk, you might be better off using this instead. It's Moodle based too! Find out more, on the UCLeXtend site.

Why use it?

This can be handy for students deciding which modules to elect, or visiting lecturers who simply don't need to do much in Moodle except a read-only view into a course.

Who can use it?

Tutors and course administrators can set guest access.

Others can access the course using a password, or if no password is set anyone in the world can access the course.

Before I start...

Decide if you need to lock the course down with a password or not. If you are at all unsure of whether you have used copyrighted materials incorrectly, or there are students interacting on the course who do not expect their forum posts and other contribution to be public, you should lock down the course with a password. In the majority of cases guest access to UCL Moodle courses will be with a password.

How do I set up guest access?

From within your course go to the top course menu, click the Participants tab and choose Enrolment methods in the drop-down menu. If Guest access is not shown as an enrolment method, click the Eye icon and guests will now be able to view your course (the eye should not have a line through it any more).

By default when you add Guest access it is hidden, this means the enrolment method will not be applied until you unhide/activate it.

If you can't see that option at all, then go to the Add method drop-down menu below and select the method.

Password for guests

In most cases, you will need to add a password for guests. We recommend this is different to the one for students. It is important you do add a password unless you have checked that leaving it open to the public will not cause problems with student privacy, data protection and/or copyright.

From within your course go to the top course menu, click the Participants tab and choose Enrolment methods in the drop-down menu.

Click the cog icon to enter Guest access settings.

To add a password for guests, set it in the Password field.
Click Save changes (at the bottom of the page).

Accessing a Moodle course as a guest

Once the guest access has been set, you can then advise your guest to go to https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk and click on the Log in as a guest link, which appears within the login box on the Moodle site home page. Once they have accepted the site terms and conditions, they will be able to find the course.

Students and staff who are already logged into Moodle will be able to enter the course directly as a guest upon entering the password, or clicking the guest access button if no password is required.

Further help

Further guidance on Guest access is available from Moodle Docs.

If you find any inaccurate or missing information you can even update this yourself (it's a communal wiki).

If you have a specific question about the tool please contact the Digital Education team.

Caution

It is important you do add a password unless you have checked that leaving it open to the public will not cause problems with student privacy, data protection and/or copyright.
By default when you add Guest access it is hidden, this means the enrolment method will not be applied until you unhide/activate it.
Guests will not be able to see Lecturecast recordings.