IN THIS ARTICLE
Administrators
Members
Guests
For most use cases, we recommend that universities and similarly structured institutions divvy up Organization Roles as specified below. For necessary background, see the rest of the Organizations and Sub-organizations guide.
Administrators
- Tier 1 (institution): Learning Technology Specialists, Dean of Academic Support, etc.
- Tier 1 Administrators have the greatest degree of control and the most expansive monitoring privileges of any Yellowdig Administrator. Limit the number of Tier 1 Administrators in your institution, and ensure that your Administrators are extremely judicious in promoting other users to Tier 1 Administrator status.
- Tier 2 (college/school): Learning Technology Specialists, Dean of the College, etc.
- Tier 1 Administrators are often good candidates for Tier 2 Administration. Ideally, the Dean of the college or school would occupy this role, but we understand that not all Deans are able to dedicate time to learning technology management.
- Tier 2 (Student Communities Organization): Students, Student Deans
- In general, we recommend that universities include a Student Communities Organization. (This Organization is visually represented here, and our recommendation is explained here.) Student deans, along with other administrators dedicated to student life (e.g., coaches, honor society officers, student activities officers, engagement administrators, etc.), may want to partner with students in administrating Communities, or they may want take the lead in running these Communities. While we strongly encourage universities to allow students to create their own Communities, the Student Communities Organization can still be a catalyst for student engagement even if university administrators are ultimately the ones "running the show".
- Tier 3 (department): Department Chair, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department-level Administrators
- To best leverage the flexibility and customizability of Tier 3 Organizations, department representatives should manage their own Organizations whenever possible. While Tier 1 and Tier 2 Administrators can constrain settings at the Tier 3 level in various ways, we encourage institutions to give departments broad latitude in managing their own affairs. Universities are diverse, and one size often doesn't fit all. In the spirit of educational freedom, we encourage limiting institution-wide constraints to the essentials.
Members
- Tier 1 (institution): Deans + Tier 1 Administrators
- Tier 2 (college/school): Students + Tier 2 Administrators
- Students who are Members of their college or school Organizations can find public and discoverable Communities outside their primary major, along with school-wide student interest Communities (e.g., Business School Events). At the same time, student cannot access Communities in other schools' Organizations, regardless of whether these Communities are public or discoverable. Hence, a College of Arts and Sciences student would not be able to read, join, or otherwise access Communities in the School of Law Organization without being invited by a School of Law Organization Administrator. In large universities where the lines between constituent schools are fairly rigid, this is ideal. However, in smaller universities where the lines are more porous, administrators might have reason to make their students Members of the Tier 1 Organization (in addition to the students' own Tier 2 Organizations).
- Tier 3 (department): Students, Faculty + Tier 3 Administrators
- One way to expand Yellowdig usage in your department is to extend Member privileges to department faculty even if they've never managed a Community. As Tier 3 Organization Members, department faculty could explore public Communities and request to join discoverable Communities within their departmental Organization. This would give them a sense of what Yellowdig Communities look like and how they can be used to engage students. At the same time, faculty would have carte blanche access neither to other departments' Communities nor to private, non-discoverable Communities within their own department.
Guests
- Tier 3 (department): Guest lecturers, Auditors, Non-matriculated Students
- In general, only class-related Communities should contain Organization Guests. Hence, Guests should generally be restricted to Tier 3 Organizations. Inviting guest lecturers or auditors to your Community as a Guest is a great way to include them in your Community without giving them undue access to content outside the Community. To ensure security and protect student privacy, it is important that users outside of your institution are never more than a Guest in your institution's Organizations.
Audience: This help article is for Yellowdig Organization Administrators. Users without this level of permission will not have access to these settings. Students, learners, and most instructors cannot access these settings.