## Permissions and Roles: Overview

### What they do

Permissions allow users to access certain features of a course or project worksite, depending on their roles and on the decisions made by the site owner and the system administrator.

Roles are simply collections of permissions. Some roles allow the user to simply access or read content, while other roles allow for advanced changes, such as adding participants, editing the site's content, and changing permissions for other roles. All roles are not created equal.

When you create a worksite or when one is created for you, you then have the role with the most permissions and the broadest level of access. You can therefore choose (within the limits established by the system administrator) which tools or functions (e.g., Discussion, Schedule, Resources) you want the site to have. For each of these tools or functions, you can set permissions that allow or prevent users from seeing or performing certain tasks, depending on their roles.

For a summary of participant roles and how to find out what your role is, see Participant roles. For a comprehensive list of all permissions associated with participant roles, see Permissions, roles, and tools.

### Key concepts

Roles may vary in name, depending on the application. However, in general, the creator of a project site, or the instructor of a course site, has full permissions and can add or delete content within a worksite.

Users who join an existing site will have a more limited role. The permissions of this role allow for interaction in the site, such as creating Chat messages and Discussion replies, but do not allow for advanced tasks, such as uploading files into Resources or posting to the Calendar.

However, each implementation of the application will be different. System administrators can decide during implementation which roles to install, and which permissions these roles will have. Roles, and the associated permissions, will vary.

### Things to remember

- The availability of a tool in a worksite depends upon the particular implementation of the system administrator. If you have broad rights to a worksite and find that a tool is not available through Worksite Setup, consult your administrator.
- The Resources and Drop Box tools share the same permissions set; if you change permissions for one, you change them also for the other.
- Default roles have default permissions; however, these defaults can be edited on the system level by the system administrator and on the worksite level by anyone with full permissions to the site.
- All users are assigned the broadest role in their respective My Workspaces; this gives a user edit control over his or her My Workspace.