Group Permissions in Concourse

Concourse employs mass permissions for groups to assist institutions with enforcing access and editing capabilities within the system. The Syllabus Geeks understand that differentiating between these groups within Concourse can be somewhat challenging. Therefore, we’ve provided information below to help you decide how to employ this functionality on your campus.

*Note: The LTI standard uses context roles that in some cases different from Concourse groups. For information on IMS LTI to Concourse group mapping, click here.

Permissions Settings

Before discussing your desired permissions scheme or assigning permissions to particular groups, it is important to understand the terminology. Read on to learn about the permissions settings and what they mean.

Group Permissions: Permissions for groups to allow institutions to enforce syllabus item access and editing capabilities within the system.

Manage Users and Setting Access: This refers to the manipulation of user group permissions, the list of registered users, required course information (course title, domain information, section information, etc.) and optional course information (course code, instructor, semester, etc.). 

Items: Concourse structured syllabi are comprised of a series of categories we refer to as items. Items possess a number of properties and can contain syllabus data. Each individual item category belongs to the Syllabus parent item and may have one or more child items. You can read about the full breakdown of Concourse items in our article entitled Syllabus Items Explained.

None: Items set to "None" means that a particular user group can neither view or edit the syllabus item.

View: Items set to "View" means that a particular user group can view but cannot edit the item content.

Edit: Items set to "Edit" means that a particular user group can both view and edit the item content. Editing permissions also allow users to add new items and delete existing items from a syllabus.

Files: Users can upload images and documents to be appended to a particular syllabus item. 

Group Permissions Defined

Managers: A Manager is a technical Concourse user, and can be considered a course administrator. This person may create process feeds, set and update permissions, set up and manage integrations, delete courses, create and drop registrations, etc. Typically, individuals assigned as Managers within Concourse work in IT, Academic Affairs, and/or eLearning.

Developers: A Developer may be someone in a department or division who manages the information on course templates. This person may be responsible for updating all or some parts of a syllabus, as well as ensuring compliance with any department or division initiatives. If content on an existing course template must be changed before sectional syllabi are created, a Developer may be the person to do it. Individuals assigned as Developers within Concourse typical works as Academic Chairs, Program Coordinators, and Template Managers.

Instructors: An Instructor is a user who has been assigned to teach a course at your institution. An Instructor may have access to view every part of a syllabus, as well as edit content or add original content to all or part of the syllabus.

Assistants: An Assistant may be someone in a department or division designated by a template manager with the capability to edit all or parts of a course template. An Assistant may also need the capability to assist instructors with editing sectional syllabi, and may therefore need to be able to access an instructor's syllabus and assist with editing. Generally, Help Desk personnel and support staff may benefit from Assistant permissions in Concourse.

Students: A Student is a user who is registered as a student in a course at your institution. A Student generally will not have access to edit any part of a syllabus, but will need to be able to view every part of a syllabus for a course in which they are registered.

Guests: A Guest is a user who is logged into Concourse with their institutional email address (i.e. jimsmith@yourschool.edu), but is not registered for the course that they are viewing. Because of this, some information may still be limited to these users, such as schedule information. At the same time, they may be able to see more than a public user, like instructor contact details.

Public: A Public user is someone who is not logged into Concourse, but can view your institution’s syllabi. The Public view is important because it can be used to hide certain parts of a syllabus that an instructor or administrator might not want to share publicly, such as contact information. That way, only members of the system-students, faculty, and administrators-can view certain parts of the syllabus.

  *Note: Some permission settings may not be available for all users, particularly if you are deploying Concourse Lite at your institution.

Now that you understand group permissions and the difference between each user group in Concourse, click here to learn about setting item permissions for each user group!