A class or an individual’s view of the course can be set to read only by someone with manager permissions so that the person (learner or facilitator) can access the course content but won’t be able to complete any tasks or assessments. They also won’t be able to participate in any social interactions like making social notes or posting in talk channels.
There are a number of reasons why a facilitator may wish to set their class or a learner to read only, such as:
Putting a course into read only mode prevents learners from completing tasks, contributing to discussions etc. after the course has ended. This helps manage expectations around late tasks being marked and also means learners can’t discuss their assignment questions or marks (which may help other learners).
Giving an individual learner read only access can be useful if you want them to preview the course before enrolling to see if it’s right for them, or if they have withdrawn from the course but still need access to the parts they have completed.
An organisation may wish to add additional facilitators to a class in read only mode so that they can monitor the class and track progress. This is useful when the organisation does not want these facilitators to be able to mark learner assessments or engage in the social channels.
An alternative to this, which is also quite popular with our partners, is our coach role which gives full facilitator access to individual learners only (and no access to talk channels). Find out more about the coach role here.
How do you turn on read only for a class or individual learners?
A facilitator will need to ask a person with manage access to turn on read only access.
See How to turn on read only access for a step by step guide.
How will a facilitator know whether the class is in read only mode?
In the Class Console a facilitator will see that the class is set to read only mode in a yellow banner:
How will a facilitator know if a learner has read only access?
In the Class Console, under the Learners tab, read only learners are identified with an eye beside the learners' name.
Facilitators can filter to Only show learners who: Are not read only.
How will a facilitator know if they have read only access?
If a facilitator (or coach) has read only access you can't mark a learner's submission. You will see a yellow warning sign (banner) In the marking window:
If you don't want learners to continue engaging with the course because a facilitator or coach need to finish marking or moderation that might result in marks being changed, a person with manage access can set all learners to read only mode, and leave the facilitators or coaches as is.
How will a learner know if they have read only access?
When a learner with read only access logs into a course and attempts to complete a task, they will see a blue warning sign:
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