Moodle Enrollments

Moodle enrollments are the setting in a course to dictate who has access to what content.

Common Roles: Who Can Do/See What

The most common roles and basic permissions, in order of access/power are:

Guest

A guest typically:

  • does not have access to a course by default and guest access must be enabled.
  • sees ONLY visible resources.
    • Items that can be applied grades or require interaction will not be shown to guests.
      This includes: assignments, forums, and quizzes as an example.
    • cannot see items marked as hidden. (Often displayed as grayed out to other roles)
  • will NOT appear or have access to the gradebook.
    • They cannot see anyone’s grades.
Read-Only Student

Ideal for student assistant roles within a course.

A read-only student typically:

  • is enrolled in a course manually by the assigned instructor or admin.
    • cannot see participants listing
    • can see student names and posts in places like forum.
  • sees ONLY visible activities & resources descriptions but cannot interact with or submit work or attempt a quiz.
    • cannot see items marked as hidden. (Often displayed as grayed out to other roles)
  • does NOT appear in the gradebook and cannot be granted grades.
    • They cannot see the grades of other students.
Student

A student typically:

  • is enrolled in a course automatically.
    • sees other student names on the Participants listing
  • sees ONLY visible activities & resources.
    • cannot see items marked as hidden. (Often displayed as grayed out to other roles)
  • appear in the gradebook and can be granted grades.
    • see the grades they are granted.
    • They cannot see the grades of other students.
Editing Assistant

This role was created specifically to provide student assistants the ability to modify course content and assist in the design of a Moodle course without providing access to Student data such as grades or enrollments. This is the opposite to Substitute Teacher.

A Editing Assistant typically:

  • is enrolled in a course manually by the assigned instructor or admin.
    • Cannot view or modify other enrollments.
  • sees and may edit all visible and hidden activities & resources.
  • will NOT appear in the gradebook
Teacher

A Teacher typically:

  • is enrolled in a course automatically.
    • Can manually enroll other teachers or students into a class.
  • sees all visible and hidden activities & resources. (Often displayed as grayed out)
  • will NOT appear in the gradebook
    • grant grades.
    • see all grades of students in a class.
Substitute Teacher

A reduced teacher role: can NOT shown as the lead contact in the course and are not able to made any changes to course enrollments.

A Substitute Teacher typically:

  • is enrolled in a course manually by the assigned instructor or admin.
    • see other students or teachers enrolled in the class
    • cannot change roles or access of others enrolled in the class
  • sees all visible and hidden activities & resources. (Often displayed as grayed out)
  • will NOT appear in the gradebook
    • grant grades.
    • see all grades of students in a class.
Staging Manager

A Manager typically:

  • must be enrolled in a course or category manually by a Moodle administrator.
    • Can manually enroll students, teachers or other managers into a class.
  • sees all visible and hidden activities & resources.
    • They may not be able to view some resources like Books however.
    • Courses will not appear listed under My Courses but can still be accessed directly.
    • sees items marked as hidden.
  • will NOT appear in the gradebook
    • grant grades.
    • see all grades of students in a class.
Course Content Viewer

This role was created specifically to grant another teacher access to your course content without fear of them seeing student work/grades, or making any changes to your course. They are able to backup and restore content from your course into their own. 

A Course Content Viewer typically:

  • is enrolled in a course manually by the assigned instructor or admin.
    • Cannot view or modify other enrollments.
  • sees but cannot change any and all visible and hidden activities & resources they may not be able to view a Forum’s content until after backup/restore process. (Often displayed as grayed out)
    • sees items marked as hidden.
  • will NOT appear in the gradebook

Other Enrollments

Teachers and Managers and Administrators can add other people to their Moodle courses.

  • To enroll an individual or two in your class manually, with or without an end date see our article on Manually Enrolling Users into a Course in Moodle.
    Ideal for:
    • Providing a late enrollment immediate access to a course.
    • Adding an instructional lead to a course to add course content.
    • Adding an administrative assistant to a course for course content management or student
  • To add ALL of the enrollments in one class to another class see our article on How to Make a Meta-Course
    Ideal for:
    • Combining two sections of the same course you are teaching into one Moodle course containing all of your students.
    • Creating an online “Office Hours” shell with Collaborate or some other Activity that allows you to manage your online office hours in one place for all of your classes.
  • To allow anyone to see your course content regardless of enrollment see our article on Enabling Guest Access for your course.
    Ideal for:
    • Creating a single resource course shared between teachers or classes
    • Creating a show-case course to display out outside entities.
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