TIM Tools 7.5 Administration Guide

Defining Member Roles (for School Licensees)

 

NOTE: This page describes the use of the Define Member Roles panel by clients with a single school license for TIM Tools. We have separate pages describing the use of this panel by district clients and by ministries of education, regional service agencies, consultants, foundations, associations, vendors, grantors, teacher preparation programs, and others. If you do not need to define any additional roles, then skip ahead to the next topic, Participation Overview.

 

If you are a TIM Tools school license holder, you are probably aware that we offer both a school version of TIM Tools and a district version. Early on we discovered that school clients often want to convert their license from a school to a district version. Sometimes a district purchased a school license just for one school that had a special technology initiative and then they decided to begin using TIM Tools in all their schools. Other districts have “test driven” TIM Tools in one school for a year before purchasing a district license the following year. To facilitate the transfer of school data to an upgraded district version, we decided to create a single version of TIM Tools with some of the options disabled for school licensees. That way, when a school wanted to upgrade, we simply had to turn on the district functions and all the original school data was already in place.

For this reason, the Super Administrator of a school license will sometimes see elements of the full district version. This is especially true in the Define Member Roles panel. The Super Admin will see both district and zone roles that are not actually used by school license holders. School Leaders, Observers, Teachers, and any other school roles you create will not see the additional zone or district references as they use TIM Tools. These unused features will appear only to the Super Admin of a school instance. Consider it a reminder that you can upgrade to the full-featured district version at some point in the future.

Each new instance of TIM Tools includes eight predefined roles: Super Administrator, District Leader, Zone Leader, School Leader, District Observer, Zone Observer, School Observer, and Teacher. A school license holder will use only four of these: Super Administrator, School Leader, School Observer, and Teacher.

The role of Super Administrator has has the highest permission level, of course. Permissions cannot be removed from the Super Administrator because there would be no one to reinstate them. The other three predefined school-level roles can be modified. For security reasons, modifications always reduce the number of permissions assigned to a role. For example, you can remove the permission of School Observers to review lesson plans at their school, but you cannot add the permission to create surveys. As you will see in the “Creating New Roles” section below, entirely new roles can be created by the Super Administrator and assigned various permission configurations as needed.

The Define Member Roles panel gives great detail about the default permissions each of the initial roles, but the following summary may be useful starting point.

Teacher. Members assigned the Teacher role can complete a TUPS, create a reflection, and record an action research project provided that the TUPS, TIM-R, and ARTI are set as active applications by the Super Administrator.

School Observer. Members assigned the role of School Observer have all the permissions of a Teacher and in addition may create TIM Observation and Lesson Plan Review records for their assigned school.

School Leader. Members assigned the role of School Leader have all the permissions as a School Observer, but also can create internal surveys, view the admin dashboard for their school, edit member information at the school level, access school email lists, and view and download school data from ARTI, TIM-LP, TIM-O, TIM-R, and the TUPS.

Super Admin. Members assigned the role of Super Administrator can do anything in the system including redefining roles and making wide-ranging changes to the system databases.

Figure 1. The default Define Member Roles panel.

 

Modifying Role Permissions

Removing or reinstating a permission for a particular role is simply a matter of clicking a button to toggle the permission off or back on. A black plus (+) sign indicates that the permission is active. A red minus (-) sign indicates that the permission has been turned off. Permission changes take effect immediately. Blue plus (+) signs indicate a permission that cannot be turned off.

Figure 2. The TUPS app has been turned off for School Leaders.

 

Creating a New Role

Creating a new role within TIM Tools takes just a moment. At the top of the panel, enter a name for the new role and select the existing role you wish the new role to inherit its permissions from. The hard part is carefully deciding which of the many permissions to assign to the role. This is simplified greatly because every new role initially inherits the permissions of an existing role. Let’s look at a few examples.

School A has Departmental Chairs. The school head wants the chairs to have access to school-level reporting, but not editing rights to the membership database. The Super Admin needs to:

1. Clone School Leader role and name it Dept Chair.
2. Disable the permissions for all of the member management permissions except for downloading email lists.
3. Since there will be only a handful of Department Chairs, it will be easy to assign those member their new roles using the Search Members tab and then selecting the new role from the dropdown menu or by using the Alphabetical List.

School B has just hired an outside evaluator to review lesson plans for a grant project. This person is not currently a school member and will only need permission to review lesson plans for the school. The Super Admin needs to:

1. Clone the School Observer role and name it Outside Reviewer.
2. Disable all permissions except for “Review lesson plans at own school.”
3. Use the “Add Members Individually” tab to simultaneously add the member and assign the role of Outside Reviewer.

School C has a very capable Director of Research and Measurement. She makes good use of statistical applications and needs access to downloads of raw TUPS and TIM-O data. She also intends to make some minor tweaks to the wording of the TUPS to better align with school terminology. Since only the Super Admin can edit the TUPS, the new Research Director role will need to be a clone of the Super Admin. The Super Admin needs to:

1. Clone the Super Admin role and name it Research Director.
2. Disable the permissions for customization and all of the member management permissions except for downloading email lists.
3. Since there will be only one Research Director, it will be easy to assign that member her new role using the Search Members tab and then selecting the new role from the dropdown menu.

Figure 3. Three new roles have been added.

Roles that you create can be deleted by clicking the red “Remove” button above the role. When you remove a role from the system, any members in that role will automatically revert back to the inherited role used when it was created.

School D would like some of its experienced teachers to conduct peer observations of first-year teachers.

1. Clone the School Observer role and name it Teacher-Observer.
2. Disable the permission for TIM-LP (lesson plan review).
3. Change the role of the experienced teachers from Teacher to Teacher-Observer.

TIP: In cases like this, we recommend naming the new role starting with the main category, such as Teacher, so that the role is clear to all administrators using the TIM Tools instance. If, for example, you named the new role “Peer Observer,” another administrator in the system might neglect to select this role when creating an internal survey intended for all teachers in the school.

 

Permissions Menu

The following list describes each of the available permissions in the “Define Member Roles” panel. For most TIM Tools clients, the default roles will be sufficient and there is no reason to wade through the following details. If you do wish to modify or create roles, you’ll find the information you need below. When creating new roles, you may want to check them by using a different browser to log in as a test member assigned the new role and ensure that the members assigned to the new role will have the permissions you intended.

No Privileges

If no privileges are assigned to a role, members will only be able to view reports, take surveys, and update their personal profile.

TUPS: Take the Survey

TUPS is added to sidebar menu. Members will be able to answer and submit the TUPS survey. members will be able to save any survey in progress to complete later. If the TUPS setting in the Admin Center is set to “Closed,” members will see a message that “The Technology Uses and Perception Survey is not being offered at the present time.”

TIM-R: Create Personal Reflections

TMI-R is added to sidebar menu. Members will be able to create new reflections. Members will be able to edit, delete, or change the publication status of any of their previous reflections. Members can download a spreadsheet of all their previous reflections.

TIM-O: Conduct Observations at Own School

TIM-O is added to sidebar menu. Members will be able to create new observations at their home school only. Members will be able to edit, delete, or change the publication status of any of their previous observations. User can download a spreadsheet of their previous observations.

TIM-O: Conduct Observations within Own Zone

Not applicable to school clients.

TIM-O: Conduct Observations across District

Not applicable to school clients.

TIM-LP: Review Lesson Plans at Own School

TIM-LP is added to sidebar menu. Members will be able to create new lesson plan reviews at their home school only. Members will be able to edit, delete, or change the publication status of any of their previous reviews. Members can download a spreadsheet of all their previous reviews.

TIM-LP: Review Lesson Plans within Own Zone

Not applicable to school clients.

TIM-LP: Review Lesson Plans across District

Not applicable to school clients.

ARTI: Create Action Research Projects

ARTI is added to sidebar menu. Members will be able to create new projects. Members will be able to edit, delete, change the publication status, or create a PDF of any of their previous AR projects.

Reports: Build Reports for Own School

The Build a Report option will be added under the Report Tool tab in the sidebar menu. Members will be able to create new reports with data from their home school. They will also be able to create reports that include just their own personal data. Available report types include: TUPS, TIM-O, TIM-LP, and TIM-R.

Reports: Build Reports for Own Zone

Not applicable to school clients.

Reports: Build Reports for District

Not applicable to school clients.

Surveys: Create Internal Surveys

Internal Survey Maker is added to the sidebar menu under Report Tool. Members will be able to create new internal surveys or clone surveys from the Survey Library. Members will be able to edit, delete, or toggle the “Live Survey” status of any internal survey they previously have created. Member will not be able to create public surveys.

Surveys: Also Create Public Surveys

Survey Maker is added to the sidebar menu under Report Tool. User will be able to edit, delete, or toggle the “Live Survey” status of any public survey in the entire system whether authored by the member or someone else. The user will also be able to create new public surveys or clone surveys from the Survey Library. This setting also gives the user the option of creating and publishing an internal survey. The user will also be able to convert an existing public survey to an internal survey.

Dashboard: View Summary Data

Adds the Dashboard to the Admin Center sidebar menu.

Manage Members: View and Edit Alphabetical List of Members

Adds Members > Alphabetical List to the Admin Center sidebar menu. User will be able to view an alphabetical list of members, their usernames, IDs, and school. Member will also be able to edit properties, reset passwords, and toggle the active/inactive status of members appearing in their list.

Manage Members: Search Members. View and Edit Results

Adds Members > Search Members to the Admin Center sidebar menu. User will be able to search for a particular member, all members of a particular role, or all members of either active/inactive status. By leaving the fields blank, the user will be able to view an alphabetical list of all members, their usernames, IDs, and school. Schol Leaders will be able to edit properties, reset passwords, and toggle the active/inactive status of all members.

Manage Members: Add New Members Individually

Adds Members > Add Members Individually to the Admin Center sidebar menu. User will be able add one member at a time to the membership database. School Leaders can add members and assign any school-level role to the new member.

Manage Members: Download Email List

Adds Members > Download Email List to Admin Center sidebar menu. User will be able to download an email list of either all members or just all active members.

Manage Members: Add and Edit Members by Spreadsheet

Adds Members > Members by Spreadsheet to the Admin Center sidebar menu. User will be able to download a spreadsheet of members (either active or all members), edit the spreadsheet, and upload it back into TIM Tools. The ability to make large-scale modifications to the TIM Tools members database is a very powerful and convenient feature. Used incorrectly, however, it can cause widespread damage to your database. Therefore this permission is restricted to the Super Administrator and any cloned roles based on the Super Admin.

Manage Members: Define Member Roles

Adds Members > Set Member Roles to the Admin Center sidebar menu. User will be able to edit existing role permissions and create new roles. This permission is restricted to the Super Administrator and any cloned roles based on the Super Admin.

ARTI: View and Download Data

Adds ARTI to the Admin Center sidebar menu. School Leaders will be able to view individual projects or download ARTI data.

TIM-LP: View and Download Data

Adds TIM-LP to the Admin Center sidebar menu. School Leaders will be able to download TIM-LP data.

TIM-O: View and Download Data

Adds TIM-O to the Admin Center sidebar menu. School Leaders will be able to download TIM-O data.

TIM-R: View and Download Data

Adds TIM-R to the Admin Center sidebar menu. School Leaders will be able to download TIM-R data.

TUPS: View and Download Data

Adds TUPS tab to the Admin Center sidebar menu. School Leaders will be able to download TUPS data.

Manage Zones: Add and Edit Zones

Not applicable to school clients.

Manage Schools: Add and Edit Schools

Not applicable to school clients.

Customization: Customize TIM Tools Applicaton

Adds the Customization tab to the Admin Center sidebar menu. User will be able to toggle the visibility of any TIM Tools application, edit the TIM Tools homepage, and change the site banner. This permission is restricted to the Super Administrator and roles that inherit Super Admin permissions.

Permissions Levels

Permission levels are pre-set for each of the default roles. Newly-created roles inherit the permission level of the role they were modeled from. The permission level sets limits for administrative functions.