Course Site Roles and Permissions Explained

Course Site roles provide rights and permissions to individuals participating in a course or group site.  Below you will find the specific information pertaining to the roles available within Course Site. Note: multiple roles can be assigned to individuals to provide additional site abilities. 

Academic Course Related Roles

See this page for HOW to add or change a role.

Teacher

Teachers in a course have the most rights and permissions in a course.  Teachers are automatically assigned to courses based on Banner instructor information. This role allows ownership and content management of the course and includes adding users with roles including teacher, TA, course builder, librarian, inres and grader.  Teachers do not need to add students to courses.  Students are enrolled in course sites based on their registrations through Banner for academic courses.

TA

The TA role is for teaching assistants within a course.  Teachers can assign this role to individuals that require the ability to work with the teacher on activity and content management in the course.  TAs also have the ability to access and grade content contributed by students.  TAs do not have the ability to assign roles to other individuals within the course.

Course Builder

The Course Builder role is intended for individuals that are assisting with the formation of the course site.  This role is restricted from information pertaining to student and grade information.  Teachers can assign this role to designated individuals, but like the TA role, Course Builders do not have the ability to assign roles in Course Site.

Grader

The Grader role is assigned to individuals that strictly need access to the gradebook and grade student submitted materials (assignments, quizzes, and other activities with submissions).  Users with this role do not have the ability to change teacher related content or modify the course layout.  Teachers can assign this role to designated individuals, but like the TA role, Graders do not have the ability to assign roles in Course Site.

TRAC

The Trac role is for Trac Fellows within a course.  TRAC Fellow role will be able to view and download assignment submissions.  In addition, the TRAC Fellow role will have access to view/assign grades to assignment submissions.  Fellows WILL NOT have access to the full gradebook, only to the grading matrix of individual assignments.  In order for Fellows to have access to submissions, the role must have access to the grading matrix.   If you do not feel comfortable utilizing this role, your TRAC Fellows will have to find a workaround to receive, and comment on, student submissions outside of Course SIte. Please Note: This role does not work with Google, Gradscope, or Turnitin Assignments. 

Librarian

The Librarian role allows librarians in collaboration with faculty to create links to course specific research guides, e-books, e-journals  and other relevant content. Lehigh librarians can also be an online resource person for discussion forums. For more information about your librarian see: *Lehigh Librarians*. This role is restricted from viewing information pertaining to grades. Teachers can assign this role to designated individuals. The Librarian role does not have the ability to assign roles in Course Site.

INRES

The INRES role is assigned to a Library & Technology Services librarian in order to add scanned course documents to a course. The INRES role does not have the ability to assign roles in Course Site.

Student

The Student role is assigned to persons that are registered through Banner for academic courses. Student roles are updated continuously through a direct connection to Banner registration information. 

Course Viewer

Allows an individual the ability to view a course regardless of course availability. This role must be used in conjunction with another role like student, visitor, etc. to gain appropriate rights and access to content and/or resources in the course.

Administrative Course Roles

Site Leader

The Site Leader role is assigned to persons that are the owners of non-academic course sites that are not linked to Banner courses. This role allows ownership and content management of the course and includes the ability to add users with the following roles: Site Builder, Participant.

Site Builder

The Site Builder role is assigned to people who assist the site leader with building and managing course content. Site Builders do not have the ability to assign roles to other users within the site.

Participant

The Participant role is assigned to people that are members of non-academic course sites that are not linked to Banner courses. The participant role is analogous to the Student role in academic course sites. Participants can access content in the site, but cannot modify the course site.

Guest Roles

Guest

The Guest role is not recommended for use. See the Visitor role below for an alternative option.

Visitor

The Visitor role provides people with the ability to view course content (e.g., Folders, Files, URLS, Labels, etc) in a course.  This includes student contributed content in wikis, blogs, forums, and other activities.  However, the role does not provide the ability to view assignments, or participate in course activities. This role is appropriate for both Lehigh and non-Lehigh persons who wish to view a course, but provides for student privacy as required by FERPA regulations. Both Teachers and Site Leaders can assign this role. Non-Lehigh people will need to have a temporary Lehigh user account set up for their use in accessing the site.

Please note:  Any content contributed by faculty, students, staff, etc. within activities like blogs, wikis, forums, etc. will show the name and profile picture (if one is provided) of the contributor.  No other profile information is available to the visitor role.

Course Site Roles Comparison Graph