Keywords: enrolment, category, department, undergraduate, postgraduate, access, editor, edit, editing
What is it?
Category level enrolments enable departmental administrators and other staff who have oversight of a department access to all the Moodle courses for that department. Moodle categories are based on the data structure described in Portico/SITS, namely Faculty > School/Institutes/Departments > Academic Entities (ANAT, COMP, HIST etc) prescribed by the Academic Model Project. Staff can be enrolled as UCL Support Staff, Course Administrators or Tutors, or MyFeedback Departmental Administrators.
Why use it?
Category level enrolments means that staff who require access to all Moodle courses within a department do not need to be manually added to every course individually. They can be added once to the department's category and then have access to every Moodle course within that category. There is also a 'no-email' role option for Course Administrators, so these staff aren't inundated with email alerts from discussion forums, but can still edit the courses within the category.
MyFeedback Departmental Administrator access must also be granted at category level. Visit M52c - MyFeedback for Departmental Administrators for further information.
Types of Moodle category roles?
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Leader | Leader can do anything within a course, including enrolling students, editing content, adding activities and grading students. This role is identical to the Course Administrator/Tutor roles, but with an alternative name. |
| Tutor | Tutors can do anything within a course, including enrolling students, editing content, adding activities and grading students. This role is identical to the Course Administrator role, but with an alternative name. Used for academic staff who require edit access. |
| Course Administrator | Course Administrators can do anything within a course, including enrolling students, editing content, adding activities and grading students. This role is identical to the Tutor role, but with an alternative name. Used for non-academic staff who require edit access. |
| Course Administrator (No E-Mail) | Course Administrators can do anything within a course, including enrolling students, editing content, adding activities and grading students. This role is identical to the Tutor role, but with an alternative name. Used for non-academic staff who require edit access. THIS ROLE DOES NOT RECEIVE E-MAIL NOTIFICATIONS. Can only be assigned at Category level. |
| Non-editing Tutor | Non-editing tutors can view and grade students' work, but may not edit content or alter activities or resources. It is used for academic staff, external examiners and teaching assistants who can grade student work but DO NOT require edit access. |
| Non-editing Tutor (No E-Mail) | Non-editing tutors can view and grade students' work, but may not edit content or alter activities or resources. It is used for academic staff, external examiners and teaching Assistants who can grade student work but DO NOT require edit access. THIS ROLE DOES NOT RECEIVE E-MAIL NOTIFICATIONS. Can only be assigned at Category level. |
| Staff Observer | Can view courses, including hidden courses and activities, but may not grade students, edit content or alter activities. This role may be suitable for staff such as those in the Library, Digital Education or Arena. |
| MyFeedback Departmental Administrator | Allows Departmental Administrators to view MyFeedback student assessment reports for their department. |
| Accessibility Assistant | Accessibility assistants can view and edit course content, and access Ally's feedback and course report. They cannot view or edit grades or assignment feedback. |
| Faculty Learning Technologist | Faculty Learning Technologist can do anything within a course, including enrolling students, editing content, adding activities and grading students. THIS ROLE DOES NOT RECEIVE E-MAIL NOTIFICATIONS. Can only be assigned at Category level. |
Who can assign category level access?
Only the Digital Education team is permitted to assign category level access. Approval from the Head of Department should be sought for any new enrolments at a category level as this grants access to a large number of courses.
How to obtain Moodle category level access?
There are two types of roles below:
Read-only / Non-editing role: A written email confirmation from the Head of Department will need to be sent to Digital Education to request access for particular staff.
Any editing roles: In order for any UCL member of staff to gain editing category level admin rights in Moodle, they will need to complete the ‘Administering your Moodle’ course and provide written email confirmation from the Head of Department specifying the member of staff and the Moodle category to which they require access. The written email confirmation from the Head of Department will need to be sent to Digital Education.
Caution
Do not provide other members of staff with category level access. It is a trusted role with unrestricted access to all Moodle courses within a category and thus requires Head of Department approval with access managed by the Digital Education team. Please see the instructions above for how to gain category level access.
Note that if you are enrolled at category level you may need to search for a course and enrol yourself onto it for it to show in your Course Overview when you log in.
Enrolling someone with a course administrator role means they will receive email alerts every time someone posts to an announcements forum that is set to 'force subscribe' (the default setting). They can disable all their alerts, but if that person is teaching or supporting these Moodle courses then they will miss important information. To avoid the emailed announcements, one option is to be enrolled at category level with the 'no-email' role to stop discussion forum emails from all courses, and then to enrol the staff member as a standard course administrator on the courses they are actively teaching / supporting to ensure they still receive these communications.
Further information
If you have a specific question about the tool please contact the Digital Education team.
