F. ICON User Roles and Associated Rights

ICON user roles and associated rights fall into five basic categories: (1) administrators, (2) support staff, (3) course designers/instructors and teaching assistants, (4) students, and (5) custom roles.

While multiple individuals may hold the same role, as a general rule, keeping the number of administrators low is advisable. Colleges are encouraged to review their role assignments annually for the first three categories. Section II-F, Creation and Maintenance of Rights and Roles, provides guidelines related to these procedures.

Note: Changes and amendments to the user roles and associated rights should only be made through the Handbook maintenance process outlined in Appendix I. ICON Handbook Development and Maintenance.

1. ICON Administrators

Users with ICON administrator roles are responsible for the day-to-day tasks related to the course site and user account maintenance in ICON. While Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology (OTLT) staff are responsible for the administration of the entire system, administrative rights are also granted to individuals around campus to support their colleges or departments.

Administrative rights are intended for instructional or support staff who work with instructors using ICON. Based on guidance from University General Counsel, this level of access is not available for those with a position of authority over instructors. Deans, Associate Deans, DEOs, or others with authority over instructors should seek approval from all instructors in their area to be granted elevated access to ICON.

There are three levels of ICON Administrators:

  • Campus Administrator: Centrally based at OTLT. Serves as coordinator for Collegiate Administrators and general administrator for groups without Collegiate Administrators. Can act as an authority in conflict with Collegiate Administrators or other users.
  • Collegiate Administrator Level 1: Elected by a college, division, or department to take responsibility for that group’s ICON course sites and body of users. High level of responsibility, administrator rights at the college level, and instructor rights at the course level.
  • Collegiate Administrator Level 2: Elected by a college, division, or department to take responsibility for that group’s ICON course sites and body of users. Medium level of responsibility, instructor rights at the course level.

Rights Table:

ROLE

Central Admin

Collegiate Admin

LEVEL

n/a

L1

L2

TASK SET

ICON Course Site and User Creation and Maintenance
Create and maintain ICON course sites

X

X

X
Use all ICON tools as permitted by the University of Iowa Acceptable Use Policy

X

X

X
Create and maintain ICON user accounts, assign users to course sites

X

X

X
Remove users from course sites

X

X

X
Grant and maintain all roles below his/her own, including Collegiate Admin, Support Staff, and instructor access

X

Delete ICON course sites from the server

X

X
Coordinate archival of ICON course sites

X
Use the impersonation tool to provide support to instructors

X

X

Communication Issues
Issue escalation: contact vendor support, including on behalf of Distributed Administrators

X
Issue escalation: Escalate issues by communicating with Head Administrator

X

X
Within appropriate org unit(s), make announcements to users regarding issues of specific interest to that audience.

X

X

X
Within appropriate org unit(s), manage shared assets using Learning Object Repository.

X

X

X
Run reports on ICON use

X

X

X

Hardware, Software, and Application Administration
In conjunction with other groups (AIS, Distributed Administrators, advisory groups), make decisions regarding hardware, software, or other product-related upgrades or configuration changes

X
Serve in an advisory capacity to Head Administrator regarding hardware, software, or other product-related upgrades

X
Make administrative and structural changes to the use of ICON, such as role creation or adjustment, template deployment, organizational unit creation, and maintenance

X

Template Creation and Deployment
Create, maintain, and deploy college and department branding

X
Create, maintain, and deploy course content templates

X

X

X
Deploy pre-created templates

X

X

X

 

 

2. Support Staff

The support staff is UI staff members responsible for verifying the contents of ICON course sites or testing sites from a student perspective.

There is one level of Support Staff access:

  • Level 1: Can view all content and activity on an ICON course site, including enrollment and grade information. The intent of this role is read-only access, though the role may have some create/edit rights based on how granular permissions can be for a given tool. Note that this level of access requires the completion of FERPA training.

ROLE

Support Staff

LEVEL

L1

TASK SET

ICON Course Site Use
View ICON course site content (e.g., documents, news postings, public calendar items)

X
View ICON course site communication tools (e.g., chat logs, discussion board posts, assignments)

X
View ICON course site enrollment information

X
View the ICON course site gradebook for the purpose of testing functionality or visibility

X

 

 

3. Course Designers/Instructors and Teaching Assistants

This category includes the main designer/instructor for a course and the teaching assistants for that course. The meaning of the rights
levels are:

  • Teacher: Has primary responsibility over content, activity, and student data in an ICON course site. This is usually the course instructor, but it may also be a support person or a graduate assistant.
  • TA: Charged with teaching a section of a multi-section course with some autonomy. Some
  • aspects are up to the TAs discretion; others are consistent among all course sections. There is a course supervisor.
  • Course Designer: Creates content and course structure (assignments, discussion forums, quizzes, etc.) but does not grade student activity.

Rights Table:

ROLE

Teacher

Course-Designer

Teaching Assistant (TA)

LEVEL

n/a

n/a

n/a

TASK SET

ICON Course Site use
Implement and customize all ICON tools in accordance with the University of Iowa Acceptable Use Policy, and the College
and Departmental policies

X

X
Implement, customize, and manage the communication tools (e.g., chat, discussion boards, whiteboards, internal mail, assignments)

X

X
Manage the communication tools(e.g., chat, discussion boards, whiteboards, internal mail, assignments)

X

X

X
Implement, customize, and manage the quiz and survey tools

X

 X

X
Use the quiz/survey tool to read and evaluate student responses

X

X

X
Implement, customize, and manage the class list and gradebook tools

X

X
Customize gradebook setup

X

X
Enter grades into gradebook

X

X

X
Make available electronic content (self-authored or via library integrations) for student use; share resources with other instructors or teaching assistants using the Learning Objects Repository

X

X

X
Customize the look/feel of the ICON course site as permitted by the college, division,
department, or organizing course.

X

X

User enrollment and statistics
Use OTLT-developed integrations for student and teaching assistant enrollment

X

X
Remove users from course sites

X

X
Enroll and use testing ID(simulated student)

X

X

X
Use reporting tools within the ICON course site for student use and progress tracking

X

X

4. Undergraduate TAs

By creating the new roles for undergraduate students, instructors are given more support with their courses and undergraduate students are given additional leadership and professional development opportunities within student employment on campus. This also fills the gap created by budget constraints and/or shortages of subject-specific graduate students that might not allow for the hiring of graduate student TAs.

Undergraduate TA – Grader: Able to assist with grading by being able to add and edit grades in the speedgrader.

  • Role permissions include Grades .

Undergraduate TA: No Grading: Able to assist with moderating course discussions including posting and viewing. Can view student groups.

  • Role permissions include Discussions – moderate, post, view and Groups – view all student groups

Rights Table:

ROLE

Undergraduate TA – Grading responsibilities

Undergraduate TA – No Grading

TASK SET

ICON Course Site use
View as a student

X

 X
See the Homepage

X

 X
See the modules

X

X
See assignments and quizzes

X

X
Preview quizzes/exams

X

 X
Manage discussions

X

 X
View quiz statistics

X

X
View Gradebook (including update grades, export and import the Gradebook, access and update Gradebook Settings)

X

 
Access Speedgrader (including interact with the Speedgrader, make comments in the Speedgrader, change the status, access and update Speedgrader Options/settings, and see rubrics in Speedgrader)

X

 
View assignment options and student submisstions

X

 
Access UICapture

X

X
See rubrics 

X

X
Access Zoom LTI 

X

X
Access and download course files

X

X
See the syllabus

X

X
Access Ally (look at items that need to be fixed and apply fixes)

X

X
See course settings (including update course navigation, view apps, see feature options and turn them off and on)

X

X
Update Grade Scheme in Course Settings

X

 
Access the LockDown Browser tool in the course

 

 

See the People tab in the course (can only see the students in the Gradebook and Speedgrader) 

 

 
Create new Pages 

 

 
Create new Assignments

 

 
Create new Quizzes

 

 
Create new Modules

 

 
Upload files to the course

 

 
Create Rubrics

 

 
Update most course details 

 

 

 

 

5. Students

A student is defined as a non-instructor and non-teaching assistant participant in an ICON course site who may or may not be a UI student. A user with a student role in ICON has the following rights:

  • may use all ICON tools as implemented in a course by the instructor/designer, college, division, or department,
  • when allowed by the course designer, may submit electronic documents to applicable ICON course sites.

A second class of student account is the Guest Student. This user is external to the University of Iowa and has a guest hawkID account eligible for the ICON service.

 

6. Custom Roles

A custom role may be created at the discretion of the Campus Administrators. Ideally, the role will be based on a pre-existing role with some minor adjustments. For full details on the processes and conventions surrounding the creation of custom roles, see Creation and Maintenance of Rights and Roles below.

License

ICON Administrative Conventions and Procedures Handbook Copyright © by ICON Support Team. All Rights Reserved.

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