MyCourses workspace and material visibility
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Open guest access is the default
The default setting in each course workspace is that materials are openly visible to guest users, i.e. all internet users. Open guest access increases the visibility of Aalto University's education. Current, future and past students of Aalto University can see and browse course contents and perhaps get interested in various studies.
For teachers, open guest access supports the idea of developing teaching collaboratively. It also enables teachers to showcase their work.
Materials and activities' descriptions are visible to guest users, but interaction during the course is between course members only: assignments, discussions, feedback and guiding are for course members only.
Teachers can open MyCourses forums to the world starting December 2, 2015
Starting December 2, 2015 teachers can open MyCourses forum to the world by enabling guest access. Those teachers who wish to use this feature in their course forums need to turn it on manually. This feature can be used both in the existing and upcoming discussion and news forums. Teachers who have been satisfied with the current forum settings need not do anything.
Teachers who want to adopt this new feature must consider the following issues concerning privacy.
- Opening previously created forums. If any messages have already been posted to the forums, teachers must receive a permission from every person who has posted messages to the forum.
- Creating open new forums. Teachers must inform students that forums are publicly visible to the internet.
When opening forums to the public (i.e. guest access), teacher must clearly state this in the description of each forum. For example, such statement could read "This forum is openly visible on the internet".
An open forum should be marked with text, for example "This forum is openly visible on the internet" in the forum's description field.
Please note! Although anyone from the internet can read the open forum postings, they cannot post any messages themselves: anonymous messaging is not possible. To write any forum messages, the users must be logged into MyCourses and be a member of the workspace.
Although open guest access is the default, access can be restricted, and the teachers can control it.
Using the default settings, who can see what:
Overview of different access restriction methods
From workspace level down to individual activities/resources.
Workspace
Default: guests can access workspace.
Restriction methods:
- Guest access: Yes / No
Section
Default: guests can see sections.
Restriction methods:
- Visibility: Show / Hide, only visible to teachers when hidden
- Restriction: Date, Grade, Group, Grouping, User Profile, Role, Restriction set. With Role, restriction to course students only is possible
Activity
Default: guests can see activity names, description and attached files. Guests cannot see forum discussions, student submissions, grades or feedback.
Restriction methods:
- Visibility: Show / Hide, only visible to teachers when hidden
- Restriction: Date, Grade, Group, Grouping, User Profile, Role, Restriction set. With Role, restriction to course students only is possible
- Permissions: which role can do what with your activity, each activity have their own set of permissions
- Assign roles, a user can be promoted to a different role within an individual activity. For example into a non-editing teacher so that the student can work as a grading assistant
Resource
Default: guests can see resources.
Restriction methods:
- Visibility: Show / Hide, only visible to teachers when hidden
- Restriction: Date, Grade, Group, Grouping, User Profile, Role, Restriction set. With Role, restriction to course students only is possible
- Permissions: which role can do what with your resource
- Assign roles. a user can be promoted to a different role within an individual activity. A student could be given teacher rights to a folder so that he/she can add articles to it.
Workspace
Disable Open Guest Access
A guest is a non-logged in user.
To disable guest access from your workspace go to:
Course administration → Users → Enrollment methods → Guest access → Hide (eye icon)
Now your workspace is only accessible to Aalto- and HAKA -users.
Hiding the workspace
Workspace can be requested to be hidden completely, however it can still be seen by the workspace teachers.
Roles which can see the workspace: workspace teachers, admins
Roles which cannot: workspace students, guests, Aalto/Haka users, etc.
Send your requests to mycourses at aalto.fi.
Section
Hide / Show
With editing mode on→ Select the section you wish to hide → click on the eye-icon ( 
) to hide the section. Click it again to show the section.
Teacher can Hide/Show sections to be visible for teacher roles only. Good for when the section is being worked on and it's not ready to be shown.
Restriction
With editing mode on→ Select the section you wish to restrict → Edit summary and section name → Restrict access
Offers several ways to limit section visibility
Date
Prevent access until (or from) a specified date and time.
Grade
Require students to achieve a specified grade in a specified activity.
Group (You must have groups created before you can use this)
Allow only students who belong to a specified group, or all groups.
Grouping (You must have groupings created before you can use this)
User Profile
Control access based on fields within the student’s profile. (e.g. restrict with "User account contains (use: aalto)" → contains → aalto)
Role
With student role, you can restrict access to your workspace students only.
Restriction set
You can combine previous methods to create more complex restriction rules.
Activity / Resource
Hide / Show
Teacher can Hide/Show activities/resources to be visible for teacher roles only. Good for when the activity/resource is being worked on and it's not ready to be shown.
Restriction
With editing mode on→ Click edit on the activity/resource you wish to restrict → Edit settings → Restrict access
Offers several ways to limit section visibility
Date
Prevent access until (or from) a specified date and time.
Grade
Require students to achieve a specified grade.
Group (You must have groups created before you can use this)
Allow only students who belong to a specified group, or all groups.
Grouping (You must have groupings created before you can use this)
User Profile
Control access based on fields within the student’s profile. (e.g. restrict with "User account contains (use: aalto)" → containing → aalto)
Role
With student role, you can restrict access to your workspace students only
Restriction set
You can combine previous methods to create more complex restriction rules.
Assign Roles
Selected workspace members can be assigned a specific role for a single activity. E.g. a student can be promoted to be a non-editing teacher, so he/she can act as a reviewer and grader.
Restricting visibility of a single file
Open the file's settings
Click "Save and Display"
Open File module administration > Permissions
These are the default permissions. Add Teacher and Student, Remove Guest and Authenticated user.
Here's an example of restricted file permission, visible only to course teachers, students and the category assistant.
Case: restricting file or folder visibility
In some cases it's necessary to limit visibility of some individual files or folder contents. For example a company has sent confidential case information for the course, and it mustn't be visible to the guest users.
Visible to guest users
Files and folders are visible to guest users by default. You can restrict guest access to your whole workspace by:
Course administration → Users → Enrollment methods → Guest access → Hide (eye icon)
Now your workspace is only accessible to Aalto- and HAKA -users, except For Aalto-section, is visible to Aalto University users only.
Visible to Aalto University Users
- Add new activities or resources into the For Aalto-section, which is visible to Aalto University users. This method does not work for Open University. OR
- Edit an existing section or create a new section: Go to editing mode → Select the section you wish to restrict → Edit summary and section name → Restrict access → "User account contains (use: aalto)" → contains → aalto
To students (course workspace members)
In Restrict access settings, use Role -> student
To group or groups of workspace members
Create groups to your workspace.
With editing mode on → Select the resource you wish to restrict → Edit settings → Restrict access → Group
Select the groups you wish to grant access to. You can also select "Any group".