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EchoVideo: User Roles, Capabilities, and Limitations

Brockman Winfrey
  • Updated

EchoVideo has two roles: system administrator and content consumer. Content consumers are the system's Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and Students. These users' activities in EchoVideo revolve around sections and classrooms, the teaching and learning environment, and the captures or other content posted there. Administrators are the Admins, Designated Admins, and Schedulers whose activity revolves around creating and maintaining objects in the system.

Administrator Type Users

While there are only two roles with administrative responsibilities, there are, in effect, three different types of administrator users. Each is defined here.

Administrators, generally speaking, can see and manage most/all aspects of EchoVideo.

Administrator or Institution Administrator

The difference between Administrator and Institution-level Administrator is whether or not you use Designated Administration in your institution. Here's the difference:

  • If Designated Administration (DA) has never been turned on, all users with the Administrator role assigned to them are Institution-level Administrators. They can see and manage everything in the system.
  • If DA is turned on, the Institution > Organization > Department hierarchy comes into play. Each Administrator must have (or be given) rights to some level of the hierarchy. Institution-level Administrators are those with rights at the highest, or Institution level of the system. NOTE that Admins who existed in the system before DA was enabled are Institution-level Administrators by default. All Admins added AFTER DA is enabled must be explicitly given rights at the Institution level to be full or Institution-level Admins.

    NOTE that if DA is turned on and admins are given lower-level rights, then DA is turned off, the lower-level admins retain rights only at the lower levels. See Disable Designated Administration for details.

Institution-level Admins can perform all actions such as (but not limited to):

Designated Administrator or Organization and Department Administrator

Designated administration only applies if Designated Administration is turned on for the institution.

A Designated Administrator is an Admin user who has been given administrative rights to one or more levels of the organizational hierarchy below the Institution-level. These users can only see the items that reside within the Org(s) or Dept(s) to which they have been given rights, however for those items, they have full administrative rights.

For items that do not fall within a hierarchy (e.g., rooms and users), Designated Admins have full administrative rights.

If Designated Administration is turned on, all newly-added or newly-assigned Admin users MUST be explicitly given rights at their appropriate hierarchical level (Org and / or Dept) by adding a checkmark for the user in the Administrators list at the appropriate level. Newly created/assigned Admins have no organizational level rights by default.

For those items visible to them in the Administrator UI, Designated Admins can perform all actions such as:

  • Create, manage, edit, publish, unpublish, and delete published/unpublished captures and uploaded videos.
  • Create, edit, manage, and delete courses and sections. This includes section enrollments.
  • Create, edit, manage, and delete capture schedules for sections.

    Designated Admins may be able to create a schedule that does not publish to a section, however, depending on the designated admin settings, they may not be able to see the resulting captures or edit the schedule later.

  • Generate all system CSV Exports.
  • Can run all CSV Imports to create, update, and delete system objects if those items fall within the org / dept hierarchy to which they have rights.
  • Section Feature toggles (enabling or disabling capabilities in the system that can be controlled down to the org/dept/section level).
  • Create terms across the institution.
  • Create and delete users in the organization.
  • Create, configure, edit, and delete rooms, as well as assigning or removing devices for those rooms.

Schedulers

Schedulers are similar to Admins, but can only see the Courses tab and the Imports/Exports tab.

Schedulers must be given explicit hierarchical-level access, regardless of whether Designated Administration is turned on. This includes institution-level rights if appropriate. If the hierarchy-assignment step is skipped when the Scheduler-role is assigned or the user is created, the Courses page for the user will be empty.

Schedulers can only see the courses and sections that fall within their access hierarchy but like Designated Admins, for all items they can see, they have full administrative rights.

As stated above, Schedulers have full administrative rights on the courses and their associated items. This includes:

  • Terms - Schedulers can create, edit, and delete terms
  • Courses - Schedulers can create, edit, and delete courses
  • Sections - Schedulers can create, edit, and delete sections, to include instructor enrollment
  • Capture Schedules - Schedulers can create, edit, and delete schedules for the sections they have access to.

    Schedulers may be able to create a schedule that does not publish to a section. However, they will not be able to access the schedule later for editing or deletion.

  • Upload Content - Schedulers can upload content to the library.
  • Collection Access - Schedulers can access the Collections tab.
  • Device Access - Schedulers can access the Rooms tab to manage devices across the institution. 

Concerning CSV Imports and Exports, the data they can obtain on export and create / update / delete on import is limited to the items to which they have access. These capabilities include:

  • EXPORTS: Schedulers can generate all types of exports, but the data returned is limited either to items that are not subject to the Org/Dept hierarchy (users, rooms, buildings, etc.) or items that fall within their hierarchical access (courses, sections, schedules).
  • IMPORTS: Schedulers can only perform Term, Course, Section, and Schedule Imports, and the items included on those imports must fall within the Scheduler's hierarchical access. Rows in the import that do not meet that criteria will fail.

Content Consumer Type Users

Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and Students are the content consumers of the system, working generally within the context of sections and classrooms. For these users, beyond the privileges or limitations provided by their roles in a section, the capabilities of these users also depend on content ownership. Content ownership is established in different ways but boils down to "does the content appear with my name on it in my Library?" If so, that user is the owner of that item.

NOTE: Admins can also be content owners. However, they do not have an explicit content library (unless they also have an Instructor, Teaching Assistant, or Student role assigned to them). Furthermore, Admins have full administrative rights on all video / audio content in the system and are not subject to any role limitations on owned content.

The below sections list the capabilities and limitations of Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and Students. There is also a section below for content owners, citing differences between student, teaching assistant, and instructor capabilities where applicable.

Instructors

Generally speaking, Instructors are Section managers. They can control what content is visible to students, add content, add classes, group classes, typically invite or remove students (and other instructors) from the section, and often set functionality on the section using the Settings > Features page toggles.

Remember that being an instructor for a section is not the same as owning the content published to the section. Frequently, the section instructor IS the owner of the captures created for the section, but this does not have to be the case. The Instructor selected for the capture schedule is the owner of the captures; this can be the same as or different than the instructor assigned to the section.

The Section and Class management tasks Instructors can perform may include:

Instructors may also be able to perform the following on content they do not own, simply by virtue of being an instructor in the section. Note that some of these capabilities are determined by the Section > Settings > Features toggle settings:

Instructor Limitations

Administrators have ultimate control over system-generated classes and captures. This means that unless enabled by an Administrator, instructors cannot delete system-generated captures, and instructors cannot unpublish system-generated captures from the class created to hold them or delete the classes if the media cannot be unpublished. These apply to both scheduled captures (automated recordings of regularly-scheduled classes) as well as Ad Hoc captures. Administrators can also enable or disable section enrollment capabilities for instructors.

Instructors can always delete manually created classes (classes created by an instructor), remove (unpublish) content they manually publish to a class. Instructors can not remove content published by another instructor.

I see the toggles but I can't change them! Many of the Section Features toggles can be permanently enabled or disabled by an Administrator (or Designated Admin). Most of the toggles are set at the Institution or Org / Dept level, but have an Allows override option. If the override option is not checked, the setting at the higher level is applied and cannot be changed at the Section level.

Teaching Assistants

Generally, Teaching Assistants act as Assistant Section Managers for Instructors. They can control what content is visible to students, add content, add classes, and group classes into collections, and monitor, respond to, and, if necessary, delete Q&A posts. If configured for the section, the teaching assistant may also be able to edit the videos or presentations published to the section. Teaching assistants are also able to share class media to other users, and can generate links to section videos for posting and viewing outside of EchoVideo.

Keep in mind that editing or sharing/publishing media is typically reserved for the media owner but is a function available to teaching assistants for media in a section. This mimics the instructor's capabilities for the section if the instructor owns the published media. While typically, the section instructor IS the owner of the captures created for the section, this does not have to be the case. All this means is that the teaching assistant for a section may be able to do things an instructor cannot if the instructor is not the owner of the media.

Teaching Assistants cannot:

  • View or export student analytic data; teaching assistants cannot see the Analytics tab for the section
  • View or export media analytic data; teaching assistants cannot see the Analytics tab for media (in the Media Details page)
  • View student polling responses; teaching assistants cannot see the Polling tab for the section Teaching assistants can see responses for each slide in the classroom, but these are not associated with individual students
  • View student polling responses for interactive media; teaching assistants cannot see the Polling tab for media even if they created and / or embedded it.
  • Control any section feature settings; teaching assistants cannot see the Settings tab
  • Enroll or remove users from the section; these features reside on the Settings tab
  • Create or control section Access links; this feature resides on the Settings tab
  • Launch Ad Hoc captures for the section using the Create button (teaching assistants do not see the New Device Capture option). They can launch a Software Capture using Universal capture.
  • Delete classes or collections of classes
  • Remove media from a class (if they do not own it; see Limitations)

The Section and Class management tasks teaching assistants can perform may include:

Teaching Assistants may also be able to perform the following on content they do not own simply by being a teaching assistant in the section. Some of these capabilities are determined by the Section > Settings > Features toggle settings, which can be controlled by an Instructor or Administrator:

  • View the Media Details page for content published to a class (click Details from the content icon menu in the class list).
  • Edit Details on content published to a class (title, description, and/or tags)
  • Edit the video or presentation published to a class
  • Share media with other users, to groups, or to classes in a different section where they are a teaching assistant or Instructor;
     - These features are accessed through the Media Details page, accessed by clicking Details from the content icon menu in the class list. The ability to share media to groups or classes also applies to Shared media in the Teaching Assistant's Library. Essentially if a teaching assistant can access the media details page for an item, they can publish or share it.
  • Create a copy of published content
  • Download content from a class

Teaching Assistant Limitations

The things a teaching assistant cannot do are listed above; however, outside of those, the role closely mimics an instructor's role. For example, if the co-instructor editing feature is turned off for a section, the teaching assistant will also be unable to edit the media in the section if they do not own it. Teaching Assistants can, like instructors, publish media to sections, and if they own the published media, they can also remove it from classes. If they do not own the media, they cannot remove it from a class/section to which it is published. While it is not likely that the teaching assistant is the owner of the captures generated for the section, if they are, they are subject to the same limitations set by the Administrator when it comes to deleting system-generated captures or unpublishing system-generated captures from the class created to hold them.

Students

Students have very few features from within the Section or Classroom. Outside of a section, if they own content, they have the same options as all content owners, except that they cannot publish media to a section. Some of the Section capabilities listed below are determined by the Section > Settings > Features toggle settings, which can be turned on or off by an instructor or an administrator (as noted in Limitations):

Student Limitations

Instructors or admins can disable certain capabilities for students, to include:

  • Disabling Q&A - removes the Q&A tab from the section and the Discussion icons from the classroom.
  • Disabling content copying - removes the Create copy option from the content icon menu.
  • Disabling the Student Library - removes the ability for students to access media outside of a section; students will not see any Content tabs on their EchoVideo home page. This is an administrative setting for the institution.

Instructors can also disable or limit content downloads from the class list as follows:

  • Downloads can be disabled altogether (removes the Download option from the content icon menu.
  • Downloads can be limited to only the Audio file for the capture.
  • Downloads can be limited to only be available while the Term is active. Once the term's end-date passes, downloads are no longer available.

Media Owners

Media owners have a Library tab where the majority of content functionality is accessed from. Instructors and Teaching Assistants (TAs) will have a Library; Students will also have a Library unless the Student Library has been disabled by an administrator.

If a user has multiple roles (e.g., you are a TA in some sections and an Instructor in others): all owned media appears in the Library tab, regardless of what role you are currently logged in as. You can publish to sections where you are an Instructor or TA, but you cannot publish to any section where you are a Student.

In general, unless disabled by an Administrator, all media owners can:

Media owners who are instructors / TAs can publish (or remove) media they own to any section where they are enrolled as an instructor or TA. TAs can publish media they do NOT own to a section where they are enrolled as a TA, however, they cannot remove that media once it has been published.