Harnessing the Power of Moodle roles

Deborah Kearney / Rex Lorenzo / UCLA

Who are we?

Deborah KearneyCCLE Support Coordinator dkearney@oid.ucla.edu

Rex LorenzoCCLE Lead Developer rex@oid.ucla.edu

Outline

1. Why customize standard roles?

2. What do you need to succeed?

3. How can role customization drive development?

Why customize standard roles?

!

!

!

When standard roles fail or just won’t scale !

!

!

UCLA / CCLE

• Campus-wide LMS

• De-centralized support

UCLA / CCLE

Term! Total UsersFall 2012 46,717Fall 2011 41,881Fall 2010 27,664Fall 2009 26,868Fall 2008 17,445

Case study: 1.9 Admin role

Create new “limited” site-administrator role

Problem

Solution

Category-level: too limited

Site-level: too powerful

By trimming site-admin permissions

standard admin view

limited admin view

Site config settings

Role overrides

Contexts

Other capabilities

Possible intersection points

Capability!a/b:c

Possible intersection points

• Create sites manually; place in any Category • Add/remove/change any CCLE user role in any site • Change the settings on any existing site • Add content to any site • Copy to/restore from any site • Import to/from any site • Check the Profile of any user • Create a special-case login on CCLE • Approve Moodle course requestor sites

Remove

Add in

Customizing is hard!

• Everything is connected

• Roles & capabilities don’t live in a vacuum

Configuration settings “trump” permissions

No

Change

Report problem

Rollback

Vicious cycle

For 3 Years!

Case study (cont’d): Manager role in Moodle 2.0

• Role between site admin and editing teacher

• Something we can assign at category level and site level

Manager role imperfections

• Still need site-level role for access to site reports and tools

• Manager limited

• Needed to be locked down when assigned at site level

• New capabilities needed

Scaling manager role• Site configs tied to abilities

• Backup/Restore/Import => Site config

• Grades => Site config

• Course settings => Frontpage settings

• Disallow dangerous actions

• “Bulk user actions”

New tools and reports1. Roles’ capabilities

https://github.com/danielneis/moodle-report-rolescapabilities

2. Edit roles by capabilityhttps://github.com/moodleou/moodle-tool_editrolesbycap

3. Roles migration https://github.com/ncsu-delta/moodle-report_rolesmigration

What do you need to succeed?

1. Experience in role management

2. Ability and willingness to make code modifications to scale roles

3. Tools to support roles

How can role customization drive development?

Solve complex problems with elegant tools

Case study: Editing teacherProblem!

• Teacher is in charge of enrollments

• Access to entire user DB

Solution!

• Delegate enrollment to local support

• Enrollment key

Wouldn’t scaleDelegating enrollment to local support

• Tenure faculty found process “frustrating and absurd”

• New units joining system also frustrated

Enrollment key limitations

• No control over who uses it

• Burden on faculty to set it up

Invitation enrollment

• Track who uses invitation

• Granular role assignment

• Make it easier to choose proper role

Invitation enrollment Demo

Invitation Enrollment

Open source version: https://github.com/ucla/moodle-enrol_invitation

Conclusion1. Why customize standard roles?

• To scale or fit unique use cases

2. What do you need to succeed?

• Tools, reports, and developers

3. How can role customization drive development?

• Solve complex problems with elegant tools

Q&A / ContactDeborah KearneyCCLE Support Coordinator dkearney@oid.ucla.edu

Rex LorenzoCCLE Lead Developer rex@oid.ucla.edu

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/rexlorenzo