Configuration Options: Sharing Syllabi with Non-registered Users

Configuration Options: Sharing Syllabi with Non-registered Users

Synopsis

Users are registered to courses in Concourse based on their roles in the associated Learning Management System course (e.g., instructor, student, assistant); those users can then view and/or edit each syllabus item based on their group’s assigned permissions within your system. However, users may also search for and access courses to which they are not registered. For example, a student may search for syllabi for upcoming courses or a public user not associated with the institution may search your system’s syllabi. An important configuration decision is how guests and public users are able to view syllabi in Concourse. Permissions are set on the syllabus item level to allow your institution to make granular decisions about viewer access; using group permissions, your Concourse system can set non-registered user access so that it is extremely restrictive, selectively restrictive, or not at all restrictive.

Key Terms

  1. Group Permissions: a setting that determines how each of seven user groups engages with each syllabus item; group permissions function at the syllabus level but can be set in a number of ways.
  2. Initial Group Permissions: a feature that allows System Administrators to configure group permission settings before a syllabus is ever created in Concourse; this feature essentially allows you to determine your system’s default group permissions.
  3. Set Group Permissions en Masse: a feature that allows Domain Administrators to configure group settings on a set of syllabi; group settings can be determined for any courses the Domain Administrator selects within their assigned domains.
  4. Guest: an authenticated Concourse user who visits a course to which they are not registered. For example, a user who is registered to a syllabus as a student may search for and access a different syllabus as a guest.
  5. Public: a user who visits your Concourse system without being authenticated (via your LMS, SSO, or Concourse directly). Public users may access a syllabus through a public-facing portal, such as an institution’s website or catalog.
  6. View: permission for the user group to view the syllabus item selected. If this permission is selected, all content in the item is visible to the applicable user group.
  7. Edit: permission for the user group to edit the syllabus item selected. If this permission is selected, the user group can edit the item, including adding content, deleting content, or modifying content that was originally cloned from a syllabus template.
  8. None: if a user group has None permission for an item, the item does not display to the user group at all. If None permission is selected for the Syllabus item, the selected user group is presented with an error message when attempting to access the syllabus.
  9. Syllabus Item: The top-level item for the syllabus. If the Syllabus item is set to None permission, the selected user group is presented with an error message when attempting to access the syllabus. If the Syllabus Item is set to View permission, the selected user group can view the syllabus and any items that are also set to View or Edit; however, the user group cannot edit any items. If the Syllabus Item is set to Edit permission, the selected user group can view the syllabus and view or edit items with those permissions.

Important to this Decision

Before making decisions about how your institution uses Concourse, you should consider how stakeholders, systems, timelines, and other factors are impacted. Review the important elements below to be better prepared to make changes to your Concourse configuration or implementation.
Key Players
When making this decision, consult: academic leaders and staff whose work is related to accreditation and compliance; faculty leaders, such as members of the Faculty Senate; any other stakeholder involved in the public dissemination of curriculum.
Consideration
This decision determines how your institution’s Concourse users, as well as public viewers, are able to view syllabi for which they are not registered. To make this decision, consider how much syllabus content you would like to make available to different access groups and if any content is considered privileged or sensitive (e.g., instructor contact information, meeting times).
Timing
Initial Group Permissions should be determined during the implementation process to ensure that all syllabi in your system have appropriate group permissions from the time of their creation. If Initial Group Permissions are not set during the implementation process, they can be set during maintenance to ensure that future syllabi created in the system have appropriate group permissions without the need for additional intervention. In the event of access exceptions or to set permissions retroactively, group permissions for non-registered users can be set at any time to increase or restrict viewing access on current, future, and past syllabi. 
Connected Systems & Locations
The Guest designation applies when users have not been registered to a course via the LMS or a Concourse Registration Feed. A Registration Feed can be processed if user registrations should be updated. The Public designation applies when users access your Concourse system without logging in or being authenticated through one of your institutional systems. Public users may navigate directly to your Concourse environment, search for, and view syllabi without logging in.
Method
Non-registered user access to syllabi in your system is determined by Group Permissions. Group permissions can be set in several ways. Refer to the help articles linked below for step-by-step instructions for each method.
  1. Setting Initial Group Permissions
  2. Setting Group Permissions en Masse
  3. Setting Group Permissions on a Course
Motivation & Impact
Some institutions consider the syllabus to be intellectual property and therefore wish to restrict its non-registered user access completely; other institutions may be subject to legislation that requires all syllabi to be searchable and visible to public viewers; and other institutions fall between the two extremes and wish to make some syllabus content viewable to certain users groups (for example, to help future students make registration decisions). 

Configuration Options

Every institution has a different philosophy and expectations about what syllabus content should be shared with external viewers. Your institution’s internal Concourse team should examine your unique contexts and values and determine the permission settings that best support your needs. 

You have a lot of control over the configuration settings in Concourse; for example, you can apply different group permissions to Guests and Public users on the same syllabus set; you can make just templates or just non-templates unavailable to Guests and Public users; and you can apply different Guest and Public permissions to specific domains that have particular needs. The options explained below represent a continuum of ways that group permissions can be set in your Concourse system to support your unique needs. Your institution may choose:
  1. Option A: (Most Restrictive) Set Guest and Public Permissions to None
  2. Option B: Set Guest and Public Permissions to a Mix of None and View
  3. Option C: (Least Restrictive) Set Guest and Public Permissions to View
If you have questions about sharing syllabi with non-registered users after reading the options below, reach out to Client Services for guidance.
Option A: (Most Restrictive) Set Guest and Public Permissions to None
  1. Approach: Use Initial Group Permissions and Group Permissions en Masse (as applicable) to set Guest and Public group permission to None for the Syllabus Item on selected courses in your system. Guests and Public users will receive an error message when attempting to access syllabus for which they do not have permission.
  2. Better For: This option is used most often by institutions that consider the syllabus to be the intellectual property of the instructor or institution and wish to keep its content confidential except for individuals immediately involved in the course (teachers and students).
  3. Effort: These functions can be completed in just a few minutes. We suggest generating a Group Permissions Report after updating group permissions in your system to ensure that all settings were applied as expected; all together, updating group permissions in your Concourse system only takes a few minutes. After making changes, you should notify any users who will be impacted (Guests) and update any relevant training materials. Depending on the extent of messaging and training materials impacted, the amount of time and effort to socializing the change varies.
Advantages of Setting Guest and Public Permissions to None
Disadvantages of Setting Guest and Public Permissions to None
Concourse provisions users with the exact access they need based on their roles in the LMS. Syllabus content is visible only to instructors, students, and high-level Concourse users with the appropriate permissions, thus keeping syllabus content confidential without the need for additional security measures or excessive administrative intervention. 
This setting can be overly restrictive for instructors who wish to share their syllabi in their portfolios or promotion packets, or if they use their syllabi to promote new courses. These instructors should be advised to download their syllabi as PDFs that can then be shared with public viewers via email or other web platforms.

Since users must be able to view a syllabus item in order to copy it, Guests can’t copy content for items with None permission. For institutions that consider the syllabus to be the instructor’s intellectual property, removing the ability of Guests to copy syllabus content is a protective measure.
If Guests can’t copy content from other instructors’ syllabi, then instructors who do wish to share their syllabi as models must download the syllabus to share via a different platform. Sharing/copying content can still occur with the instructor’s permission, but it is more cumbersome.
Guests and Public users’ permissions can be set to None on a specific group of syllabi, such as pilot courses that are still in development. In this way, syllabi that are not officially part of your institution’s curriculum yet can still be developed in Concourse without be visible and potentially confusing to some audiences.
Some institutions direct accreditors to the public view of Concourse syllabi for review purposes. If non-registered users do not have View permission for syllabi, then this approach is not possible. Syllabi would have to be downloaded in bulk and shared with accreditors through another platform.
Option B: Set Guest and Public Permissions to a Mix of None and View
  1. Approach: Use Initial Group Permissions and Group Permissions en Masse (as applicable) to set Guest and Public group permission to View for the Syllabus Item on selected courses in your system. For each item in the syllabus set, select View for items that should display to non-registered users and None for items that should not display to non-registered users. Guests and Public users will be able to access the selected syllabi and view all items for which they have View permission; items for which they have None permission will not display on the syllabus.
  2. Better For: This option is used most often by institutions that prioritize curriculum transparency for purposes such as supporting current students and attracting prospective students. These institutions may choose to present certain syllabus items, such as course descriptions, required materials, or deliverables, but hide other items that may be considered inappropriate for non-registered users, such as instructors’ contact information and office hours.
  3. Effort: Setting group permissions and generating a Group Permissions Report can be completed in just a few minutes. After making changes, you should notify any users who will be impacted (Guests) and update any relevant training materials. If syllabi are shared via a public page, you may want to update that platform with a statement that discloses which items are available to Public 
Advantages of Setting Guest and Public Permissions to a Mix of None and View
Disadvantages of Setting Guest and Public Permissions to a Mix of None and View
If Guests and Public users can see only appropriate information, then instructors and syllabus editors can share syllabi with prospective students or in public platforms without the risk of disclosing “sensitive” information.
Training and messaging to syllabus editors should indicate which items are visible to non-registered users. If this information isn’t communicated clearly, end users may perceive only some items displaying to Guests and Public users as an error and inundate your help desk with tickets. 
Setting group permissions for non-registered users on the item level allows your institution to meet legislative requirements for curriculum transparency or to communicate with prospective students without disclosing the entirety of a syllabus. The institution can determine what information is proprietary or sensitive and make those items private while allowing other elements of the syllabus to be viewed. This option gives institutions the most granular control of syllabus access.
Maintaining a mix of group permissions is not difficult or time-consuming when Initial Group Permissions are set to reflect your institution’s values; however, if exceptions arise, such as specific departments with unique permission needs or permission limitations by term or year, then group permissions need to be set en masse for the exception group. In these cases, syllabus editors in the exception group must be trained on how syllabus items are visible to non-registered users and how this differs from normal use.
The institution may consider some syllabus items (e.g., assignment descriptions) to be the instructor’s intellectual property, while other items (e.g., course description) are considered institutionally mandated and therefore not unique to the instructor. By setting non-registered user permissions to None for items that are considered the instructor’s intellectual property, the institution can prevent Guests from copying proprietary syllabus content.
Since users must be able to view a syllabus item in order to copy it, Guests can’t copy content for items with None permission. If Guests are able to copy some, but not all, items from another instructor’s syllabus, they may perceive this behavior to be an error and raise tickets with your help desk erroneously.
Option C: (Least Restrictive) Set Guest and Public Permissions to View
  1. Approach: Description of each option; how does the option impact system configuration and user experience. What is the time investment of this decision?
  2. Better For: This option is used most often by institutions that prioritize full transparency about curriculum or syllabus content. Institutions that are subject to legislation about curriculum and syllabus transparency are an example of an institution that could find this option most appropriate. 
  3. Effort: Setting group permissions and generating a Group Permissions Report can be completed in just a few minutes. Since this option results in increased access, it is not as crucial to notify Guests and Public users about a change in the experience. Whereas decreased access might appear to be an error, increased access will likely go unnoticed.
Advantages of Setting Guest and Public Permissions to View All
Disadvantages of Setting Guest and Public Permissions to View All
If non-registered users are given View permission for all syllabus items on templates and not on (live) section syllabi, then there is no concern for potentially sharing sensitive or proprietary information. All standard syllabus content is visible to Guest and Public users without compromising unique content that instructors may add to their section syllabi.
If non-registered users are given View permission for all syllabus items on (live) section syllabi, then sensitive information, such as class locations, meeting times, and instructor contact information may be shared publicly. Some institutions consider such a disclosure to be inappropriate or risky, and therefore apply different group permissions to templates versus section syllabi.
Some institutions choose to link the public view of syllabi to an online catalog or scheduling page to assist students with advising and registration. Depending on your institution’s preferences and philosophy about intellectual property, syllabus templates’ Public permission can be set to View and templates can be shared in this manner, or (live) section syllabi can be set to View to give students a clearer understanding of how a specific offering will be taught.
If Guest and Public permissions are set to View all items for section syllabi, it is possible that non-registered users can search for and view a syllabus that is still in progress. In other words, a non-registered user might find a draft of a syllabus before it is ready to be shared or before the instructor has finalized all decisions, therefore giving viewers inaccurate perceptions of the syllabus. It might be better for your institution to initially set permissions for some items to None and then update to View when the syllabus editing deadline has passed.

Post-Decision Changes

Your institution’s needs may change over time and you may need to make changes to your configuration settings. In other words, the configuration decisions you make during the implementation phase might not be as efficient five or ten years afterward. Review the guidance below to better understand how changing this particular decision may affect your Concourse system or deployment in the future.
Increasing Permissions for Non-registered Users Later
  1. Increasing permissions for non-registered users can be done at any time; however, adjustments must be made to your system to reflect whether increased access applies to all syllabi in your system or just those syllabi created from a certain point forward.
  2. Before making any decisions, generate a Group Permission Report to confirm non-registered user access in templates, non-templates, or a more specific syllabus set. After reviewing the Group Permissions Report, update Initial Group Permissions to give Guests and Public users View permission for appropriate syllabus items on future syllabi created in your system. If View permission should be applied for past syllabi, update Group Permissions en Masse as needed. Generating and reviewing the Group Permissions Report and changing group permissions may take as little as 20 minutes.
  3. If non-registered user permission is increased on past syllabi, it is unlikely but possible that Guests may copy content from previously-inaccessible syllabi to syllabi where they are the instructor. To retain accurate copies of past syllabi for archival purposes, it is recommended that domain users generate a bulk download of syllabi prior to updating their group permissions.
  4. Training materials and messaging will need to be updated to let instructors and syllabus editors know what items are visible to non-registered users. If your institution has previously maintained that syllabi are intellectual property of instructors, then a statement from the Provost or Academic Affairs may be needed to explain this philosophical shift.
  5. Users in an editing role may need guidance about what type of information to include in each syllabus item to ensure that only appropriate information is visible to non-registered users. Before determining whether more training is needed about using syllabus items, it’s a good idea to generate an Item Report or Multi-Item Report to confirm how editors are using syllabus items prior to making any changes.
Restricting Permissions for Non-registered Users Later
  1. Restricting permissions for non-registered users can be done at any time; however, adjustments must be made to your system to reflect whether restricted access applies to all syllabi in your system or just those syllabi created from a certain point forward.
  2. Before making any decisions, generate a Group Permission Report to confirm non-registered user access in templates, non-templates, or a more specific syllabus set. After reviewing the Group Permissions Report, update Initial Group Permissions to give Guests and Public users None permission for appropriate syllabus items on future syllabi created in your system. If None permission should be applied for past syllabi, update Group Permissions en Masse as needed. Generating and reviewing the Group Permissions Report and changing group permissions may take as little as 20 minutes.
  3. Training materials and messaging will need to be updated to let instructors and syllabus editors know what items are no longer visible to non-registered users. Instructors should be notified that they will not be able to copy syllabus items for which they have None permission; if instructors are not notified about this change in permission, your helpdesk may receive an uptick in support tickets about a perceived error.
  4. If instructors previously embedded their syllabi in other platforms or shared public links to advertise upcoming classes, it is a good idea to train instructors on how to download the syllabus and share the PDF outside of Concourse.

Related Topics

Before making a decision about sharing syllabi with non-registered users, you should be familiar with some related issues and contexts. See the following articles for more information:
  1. Group Permissions
  2. Creating a Group Permissions Report
  3. If you choose to register users to courses so they access courses in a specific group rather than as Guests, you could process a Registration Feed. See Construct and Process System Data Feeds for more information.

Tell Us About Your Experience

Did this article answer your question? If you made a decision like this for your Concourse instance, let us know how it turned out. If we missed something in this article or if you have a question that isn’t addressed in our Knowledge Base, let us know how we can help by reaching out to support@campusconcourse.com. 

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