This article will be most useful for Concourse Admins.

Overview

Groups

1. Managers: Typically, individuals assigned as Managers within Concourse work in academic departments, Academic Affairs, and/or eLearning. A Manager may add, edit, and delete syllabus content; view user registrations; and update the audit trail of syllabi. 
2. 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 section syllabi are created, a Developer may be the person to do it.
3. 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.
4. Assistants: An Assistant may be someone in a department or division with the capability to edit all or parts of a course template. An Assistant may also need the capability to access and edit Instructors’ syllabi to assist with editing section syllabi. Generally, Help Desk personnel and support staff may benefit from Assistant permissions in Concourse.
5. Students: A Student is a user who is registered as a student in a course at your institution. A Student generally does not have the ability to edit any part of a syllabus but will need to be able to view every part of a syllabus in a course to which they are registered.
6. Guests: A Guest is a user who visits a course to which they are not registered. This is a user who has a Concourse account and may be registered to other courses. A Guest may have access to view every part of a syllabus depending on the item permissions set by the system and/or domain administrators. Note that users with domain permissions are also considered Guests when visiting courses to which they are not registered.
7. Public: A Public user is a syllabus viewer who does not access Concourse via an authenticated account. Public users may access a syllabus through a public-facing portal, such as an institution's website. Public users have the ability to view any syllabus items approved by the system and/or domain administrators.
   

Managing Group Permissions

1. Initial Group Permissions: Initial group permissions only apply to syllabi and syllabus items that do not already exist in your system. Initial group permissions are set for future section syllabi to reduce the amount of adjustments that have to be made to group permissions after courses are created. See Setting Initial Group Permissions for instructions on using this feature.
2. Set Group Permissions en Masse: Group permissions allow you to update permissions (en masse) to a large set of existing syllabi and/or syllabus items. Setting group permissions en masse is useful for exceptions to standard item editing permission (e.g., if Instructors in a specific department need editing permission on an item that usually isn’t editable for faculty) and creating syllabus archives by setting all group permissions to View only. See Setting Group Permissions en Masse for instructions on using this feature.
3. Set Group Permissions on a Course: Group permissions can be adjusted on individual courses when unique exceptions exist. For example, if an instructor should be able to edit an item in a service learning course when instructors in their department typically cannot edit the item, group permissions could be adjusted just for that course to allow the unique permission. See Setting Group Permissions on a Course for instructions on using this feature.
   

Best Practices and Recommendations

1. If your institution uses the Manager role for editing syllabi, users in this group may have to be registered for the Concourse courses manually. You can create and process a registration feed to add users to courses in a specific role.
2. Even if your institution does not broadcast public access to your Concourse syllabi, any individual can access your institution’s syllabi if they have the public view links (Syllabus > Info > Links > Public). It’s best to discuss what public viewers should be able to access and set group permissions accordingly so that no sensitive information is exposed (e.g., instructor contact information or meeting times). For example, you might set public access to None on non-templates (section syllabi) but allow public users to view Description, Objectives, and Materials on templates.
3. Remember that editing permission on templates and section syllabi do not necessarily match. In other words, if an instructor isn’t able to edit an item on a template, that does not mean that they cannot edit the same item on their section syllabus. Be familiar with your institution’s group permissions and make adjustments as needed to keep content secure and accurate.
4. We recommend generating a Group Permissions Report as part of your regular system maintenance to ensure that all users can engage as expected with syllabus items.