Who can do what on a course

There are four roles on a course, and one that belongs to the whole site. They are not ranks — somebody can be an instructor on one course, a student on another, and nothing at all on a third.

The four course roles

Student

Takes the course. Sees the lessons, answers the questions, sees their own results and nobody else’s.

Assistant

Marks the work. Everything a student can see, plus the register and the whole gradebook, plus the authority to score a written answer and change a mark.

An assistant cannot change the course — no editing lessons, no adding modules, no settings — and cannot add or remove people. The role exists because marking and running a course used to be one permission, and a teaching assistant needs the first without the second.

Contributor

Writes the content. Adds, edits, reorders and deletes modules and lessons, and uses the lesson editor.

A contributor cannot see the register or the gradebook, cannot change the course’s settings — price, dates, who may enrol, whether it is visible — and cannot delete the course. They are also not listed on the course page as teaching staff, because they are not somebody a learner should write to about the course.

Instructor

Runs the course: everything above, and the settings, and the authority to retire it. The only role that is both an author and a marker, which is what makes it the senior one rather than a third name.

The site role

Site admin

Looks after the site rather than a course: the site’s name and appearance, the people on it, its pages, bundles, invitations and billing. A site admin can also do everything on every course on their site, without being enrolled on any of them — which is why they do not appear in any course’s register.

Read it as a table

	Student	Assistant	Contributor	Instructor
Read the lessons	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Edit lessons and modules	No	No	Yes	Yes
The register	No	Yes	No	Yes
Add or withdraw people	No	No	No	Yes
The gradebook, and marking	No	Yes	No	Yes
Course settings	No	No	No	Yes
Listed as teaching staff	No	Yes	No	Yes

Two things that follow from this

Staff do not accumulate progress. An instructor, assistant or contributor clicking through a course is checking it, not taking it, so nothing is recorded against them and they do not appear in their own gradebook. If you need to see the course as a learner does, ask to be enrolled as a student on a copy of it.

Staff see everything immediately. On a course that releases modules over time, staff see all of it from the start. That is correct — you cannot build what you cannot open — but it means you cannot check a release schedule by browsing. Use the preview in the course’s Release settings instead.