Understanding staff roles in Tahoe

In Tahoe, you've got a few levels of staff access, and it helps to know who can do what. With that in mind, here's a breakdown:

Role name Rights & responsibilities
Tahoe Admin
  • Has access to the management console.
  • Can modify all parts of the website
  • May create courses
  • Can add Course Admins and Course Staff (to their own courses)
  • Numbers limited according to Starter or Pro subscription tier
  • Will still need to be granted access at individual course level to view/edit courses they did not create
Course Admin (also referred to simply as Admin)
  • Has full control over an individual course
  • Can add other staff and admins
  • Has access to all parts of the instructor dashboard
  • Can do everything that Course Staff can do

Course Staff (also referred to as Staff or Instructors)

  • Can edit the course
  • Has slightly less access to the instructor dashboard (specifically, no access to role management)

Using these roles

The typical flow of course creation on Open edX in Tahoe is as follows:

  • Tahoe Admin configures and themes the site
  • Tahoe Admin creates the course in Studio
  • Tahoe Admin grants another staff member Course Admin rights on their course.
  • Course Admin manages their course, inviting other staff members to become Course Staff
  • Course Staff work alongside the Course Admin to create their course

These roles aren't mutually exclusive - a Course Admin may be a Tahoe Admin (and in fact, as far as Open edX is concerned in the background, a Tahoe Admin is a Course Admin), and a Course Admin may be responsible for many of the same responsibilities as a Staff user. How you use these roles is ultimately up to you - but the buttons they have access to are limited according to these three roles.

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