Manage Administrator Roles of Members in a course

Keywords: members, administrators, roles, manage materials, section override roles

Aliases: Schoology

Assigning roles within a course

To assign an override role to a member in a section you administer:

Navigate to the Members page of the section.
Click the gear icon to the right of a user’s name.
Select Make Admin from the drop-down menu.
At this point, the user is a course admin with organization-level permissions controlling what they can do in Schoology and this course section.
After the user is an admin, click the gear icon again.
You’ll see a new option, Set Section-level Role.
Click on this to see the section override role options.
A pop-up appears showing the options to either keep the user’s organization-level role or to assign a section-level role.
Click Save to apply any changes.

Icons

In Schoology, the shield icon is used to indicate admin status in a course or group. However, if your Enterprise organization has enabled the Section Override Roles feature, you may see different icons:

The shield-with-star icon, indicating that a user is a course admin and their organization-level role permissions apply within that section. This icon also applies to group admins.
The blank shield icon, indicating that a user is a course admin with a section override role assigned in that section.

For example, in the screenshot below, the user is course admin with an organization-level role and permissions in Math 5: Section 2. In Math 5: Section 3, a blank shield icon indicates that a section override role is in place that overrides the user's organization-level role and permissions.

ASSIGNING SECTION OVERRIDE ROLES (ENTERPRISE INSTRUCTORS)

Section override roles give course administrators the ability to empower a co-teacher, teaching assistant, paraprofessional, or substitute teacher, to name just a few examples, with section-specific permissions that may be different than the global permissions they have with their organization-level role (such as teacher or student).

There are six default categories that cover many likely role scenarios:

Role Name

May be great for...

Edit Grades / Edit Materials

Co-Teacher
Special Education Co-administrator
Substitute Teacher (Long Term)

Edit Grades / View Materials

Teaching Assistant

View Grades / Edit Materials

Teacher Advisor
Grade-Level Lead

View Grades / View Materials

Principal
Mentor teacher
Student Teacher

No Grades / Edit Materials

Curriculum team
Office Managers

No Grades / View Materials

Paraprofessionals
Substitute Teacher (Short-term)
Tutor or Advisor
Visiting Teacher

It’s important to remember that section override roles can both enable and disable permissions for users in specific sections.

For example, if a user has organization-level role permissions which allow them to Manage materials, but he or she is enrolled in a section with a section override role permission which does not allow them to Manage materials, then he or she will be losing permission to edit materials within that section.
Likewise, if a user has organization-level role permissions which do not allow them to Manage materials and is enrolled in a section with a section override role permission which enables them to Manage materials, then he or she will be gaining permission to edit materials within that section.

Note: If you aren't sure which permissions are available to a user based on their organization-level role, please reach out to your organization's Support Contact.