Manage Users

In this section:

Overview

As the Administrator, you will want to add users and, in most cases, assign them to organizations and roles. These users (Administrators, License Managers, Schedulers, A/V/V Technicians, and Academic Staff) are Active Staff. They can log in to the ESS (EchoSystem Server).

You may also want to add users who are Active Students. Active Student users:

  • Are not assigned an organization and role. When you add a user but do not assign an organization or role, the user is, by default, an Active Student.
  • Cannot log in to the ESS.
  • Have their activities logged and included in /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217275.

The figure below shows how Active Staff and Active Students are organized into different tabs on the Users list page (Configuration > Users).

tabs for active staff and active students as described

Any Administrator (System Administrator, parent organization Administrator, or child organization Administrator) can add users.

EchoSystem comes configured with several user roles, each with a unique set of rights, as described below.

Role names are part of the EchoSystem Server UI, and so can be /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217287.

For information on monitoring and managing Personal Capture users, see /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217427.

System Roles

The System level roles described in the table below can only be associated with the parent organization.

Role

Description

License Manager

This role can view licensing assignments within the EchoSystem. When combined with the Admin role, the user can assign /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217289, and /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217291.

The License Manager role can only be assigned at the root or parent Organization level. This is why it is considered a "System Role" and not an "Organization Role." The License Manager role allows the user to view all assigned licenses across the entire organization, including sub-organizations.

If the user is also assigned the Admin role for an organization (either parent or child), the user can then assign or revoke licenses for that organization.

System Admin

The System Admin (System Administrator) can perform all ESS actions, in the parent or any child organization.

Organization Roles

The Active Staff roles described in the table below are associated with either a parent or child organization. When the role is associated with the parent organization, the user can perform allowed actions for the parent organization or any child organization. When the role is associated with a child organization, the user can affect only objects owned by the child organization.

Role

Description

Academic Staff

This role identifies the user as a member of the Academic Staff for the selected organization. This role assignment allows the user to:

  • Be assigned to a section and given a role within that section, such as Instructor.
  • Be licensed to use Personal Capture.
  • Log in to the ESS to review and edit Echoes for an assigned section.
  • Log in to the EchoCenter for an assigned section and review student usage or prepare Lecture Tools materials.

Academic Staff can only be assigned to sections belonging to their organization or sub-organization.

You can assign this role at the parent organization level if the user is not associated with a specific child organization and needs to be assigned a section role.

Admin

The parent organization Admin (Administrator) can do everything except system configuration (the /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217264 page). More specifically, the Administrator can:

  • Create and manage child organizations
  • Manage and create objects (courses, rooms) in child organizations
  • Manage all user accounts and roles except the System Administrator
  • Perform all monitoring tasks for both parent and child organizations 
  • Manage the details of a course or section (edit a course or course details; edit a section or section details)

These configuration choices apply to the entire institution and where applicable are inherited by the child organizations.

The child organization Administrator can:

  • Set defaults for the child organization
  • Create objects owned by the child organization
  • Access shared objects from the parent organization
  • Perform all monitoring tasks for the child organization
  • Manage the details of a course or section (edit a course or course details; edit a section or section details)

When combined with the License Manager role, a user can assign and revoke /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217276 and /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217291 for the organization to which their Admin privileges apply.

A/V Technician

The A/V Technician can:

  • Register devices and assign devices (Configuration > Devices) to rooms
  • Configure properties set at the device level (Configuration > Device Configuration) or room level (Configuration > Rooms)
  • View (but not edit) Echoes in all available formats (Podcast, Vodcast, EchoPlayer)
  • View the Monitor tab
  • View capture details and logs

Scheduler

The Scheduler can perform all schedule-related tasks for the parent organization or any child organization. More specifically, the Scheduler can:

  • Create and Delete terms, courses, and sections
  • View the Monitor Summary and Processing Tasks tabs, seeing information for both the parent and child organizations
  • Schedule captures for the parent organization or any child organization
  • Manage the details of a course or section (edit a course or course details; edit a section or section details)

Section Roles

If you assign the Academic Staff role to a user, you will also apply one of the following section roles to the user when you /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217442.

  • Guest Presenter
  • Instructor
  • Student Presenter
  • Teaching Assistant

These particular roles, described in the below table, are assigned on the section level to allow flexibility. For example, a particular individual might be a Guest Presenter for a section in the business school, but an Instructor for a different section in the math department.

Role

Description

Guest Presenter

The Guest Presenter gives a single (or a few) lectures to a particular section. These lectures are usually captured via the Ad Hoc interface. The Guest Presenter:

  • Can view Echoes for which he or she was the Presenter
  • Can participate in discussions in the EchoPlayer
  • Cannot edit, reprocess or change the state of an Echo

Instructor

The Instructor is the course owner. The Instructor:

  • Can edit, reprocess, change state and permanently delete Echoes
  • Is listed in metadata as the person who presented the materials in the ESS and EchoPlayer data
  • Can import external media and Personal Capture presentations for their sections
  • Can see viewing statistics in the EchoCenter and can see hot spots in the EchoPlayer
  • Can participate in and moderate discussions (delete posts and replies) in the EchoPlayer

Student Presenter

This role is primarily for students who prepare Personal Capture presentations as class assignments. The Student Presenter can do these tasks for his section:

  • Prepare presentations in the Personal Capture application, then log in to the ESS to publish them
  • Log in to the Ad Hoc interface and prepare captures
  • Log in to the ESS and view only all Echoes

A Student Presenter:

  • Cannot import external media
  • Cannot edit any presentations, even presentations he himself published
  • Does not appear in schedules
  • Must be granted access if /wiki/spaces/54/pages/590217437 or trusted system security is applied to the section

Teaching Assistant (TA)

The Teaching Assistant (TA) has rights similar to an Instructor's but:

  • Cannot permanently delete an Echo.
  • Is not listed as the Presenter. To allow this person to be listed as the Presenter for certain Echoes, assign the Guest Presenter role.

If You Have Delegated Administration

This table below provides some common scenarios and answers some frequently asked questions about managing users in an organization with delegated administration.

Scenario

Solution

We manage all schedules centrally at my institution but I want user roles and other objects to be managed by department. What should I do?

Give users who manage schedules the Scheduler role at the parent organization. This allows them to schedule courses and rooms for all child organizations.

We have a designated administrator for each organization in our hierarchy. We want that person to manage everything for those organizations. What should we do?

Give these users two roles for their respective organizations: the organization Administrator role and the License Manager role. In the Administrator role, they can then create objects and users and assign more granular roles accordingly. With the License Manager role, they can assign licenses from the license page. Child organization Administrators can do this because licenses are automatically shared, even though they are owned by the parent organization.

Export and Import Users

You may sometimes want to add many users all at once or to change properties of many users. You can do this efficiently by using the export and import features with a spreadsheet program such as Excel.