for presentation at FUSION, D2L's user conference July 2009 in St. Paul, MN

1. Distributed Empowerment
Supported Globally, Administered Locally

2. Agenda
1. Background - Structure of our organizations, numbers for
depts/schools
3. D2L Configuration – how our organizations are currently configured
5. What’s working / What’s Not – a discussion about successes and
challenges at our institutions
7. Wish List – ideas proposed to meet our challenges. How do they align
with the needs of other institutions? Are there commonalities or
competing interests?

3. Opening Statements
Technology and policy should allow administrators can
empower others within the institution so that they have
administrative control over their own environments.
The Learning Environment should be engineered so that
departmental administrators can manage users, courses,
tools and roles. In turn, these administrators will be able to
empower other users.

4. Tools of the Trade
• Organizational Structure
• DOME
• Roles and Permissions
• Most importantly, communication

5. Organizational Structure - UGuelph

6. Organizational Structure - CBE

7. Templates w/Multiple Parents
DE course templates are assigned
2 parent departments
DE department associates can
configure the course template to
meet their needs, and have full
control over the course offering

8. Another
way to
look at it…

9. CBE – Baselines vs Templates
• One template per school/program
• Program of studies is the same, but curriculum is not
• Local team/individual baselines
• Control over baseline is managed by the owners

10. Empowerment
“to equip or supply with an ability; enable”
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
“to promote the self-actualization or influence of”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary
“Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social or
economic strength of individuals and communities. It often
involves the empowered developing confidence in their own
capacities.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empowerment

11. Goals
To ensure that the roles and permissions structure meets all use cases
effectively.
"Effectiveness" will be measured by how the structure adheres to privacy
guidelines, is manageable, flexible, and meets business practices for
different units. (TSS, OOL, department, colleges and other units)

12. Course Creation
Course creation using D2L’s Bulk Course Create process.
Course files and components can be imported through
the same process

13. Course Customization
Full control for Department’s courses

14. Course Management
Access to Department course offering folders

15. User Management
Control over user creation and enrollment using D2L
User Management tools

16. Roles
• Develop a
philosophy
• Come up with
a plan
• Implement
• Refine

17. Roles
Role types can be created in test instance and imported
• Keep it simple
• Dedicated staff for role management
• recommended that only high-level administrators have access to the
Manage Roles and Permissions tool. (source: Mackie & Vance “Best
Practices in Role Management”, FUSION 2005)

18. Roles
Who the are
How they are created
What they can do

19. Organization-level Roles - UGuelph
ORG super admin ORG admin ORG user ORG non-uog user
Who they are Sys admins LTCi staff uoguelph users guests
No access to DOME, eP, locker, my
What they can do All permissions my courses
roles courses, profile, etc
How they are created super admin super admin LDAP admin

20. Organization-level Roles - CBE
ORG
ORG Super
Course ORG Teacher ORG Student ORG Externals
Admin
Admin
Who they
Sys admins CLT Staff CBE Teachers CBE Students Guests
are
No access eP, locker, eP, locker, MyCourses
What they All
to DOME, content, disc, No pager, no mail, no my courses
can do permissions
roles MyCourses, etc profile
How they
Super Super admin, Course
are Super admin LDAP LDAP
admin Admins
created

21. Course-level Roles - UGuelph
TA-build- Guest-non
Instructor TA-grade Registered-Student Guest-Graded Deferred
grade graded
Officially registered
Who Teaching Instructor-level Grader Deferred exams
(incl AU)
Admin
Design
What Design Grade Student-level Student-level Student-level past courses
Grade
Grade
Request Request Request Request Request Request
Admin/ Admin/ Admin/ Colleague Admin/ Admin/ Admin/
How Assoc/ Assoc/ Assoc/ Assoc/ Assoc/ Assoc/
OLIS
Instructor Instructor Instructor Instructor Instructor Instructor

22. Course-level Roles - CBE
Teacher TA Student Student CBe-Learn Guest
CBe-Learn Online External Users and
Who Teaching Instructor-level CBE Student
Student Invited Guests
Admin
Student-level & D2L
What Design Grade Student-level Student-level
Email
Grade
Request Request Request
How Admin/ Admin/ Request Admin / Teacher Course Admin Admin/
Teacher Teacher Teacher

23. “Dept”-level Roles
Associate Assistant Observer
Who Departmental Marks admin Guest, Chair
What Instructor-level TA-Grade-level Guest-level
Admin/ Admin/
How Super admin
Associate Associate

24. Department homepage
Management of department enrols

25. Wish List
• Create Shared Forums at the Dept level
• Create Users at the Dept level
• Roles and Permissions…provisioning
• Navbar permissions
• Course creation
• User Management
• WebDAV granularity