Users: Site Access, Registration, and Posting

Drupal has a permission system which places users into roles/groups of users. A visitor who is not logged in is an anonymous user and a newly registered user is an authenticated user. An additional role has been added to this installation, an administrator which is given full access on the site. In the original account setup, the root super user account which was created first (the teacher's user account) is not affected by the Drupal permission system.

Some configuration tips:

• Registration. The user settings page will allow you to change whether users can register on their own, require administrator approval, or not at all. The email sent to users can also be changed here, as well as the registration page information guidelines that users see when registering.
• Posting comments. In the comment module section of the user configuration, the permissions page controls whether or not anonymous users or authenticated users can post comments at all or only with moderater approval.
• Upgrading permission status. Many sites will need to have more than one site administrator. Visit the users page and select the user you wish to upgrade, then click on the "edit" tab. Look for Roles and check the appropriate box, then save your changes.

Populating the Course: Registration

To avoid spamming, you must make certain that the user settings are set so that "Visitors can create accounts but administrator approval is required." This will prevent spamming while allowing students to join the course during the add/drop period and to register with your approval.

Recommended: if your site is public on the Internet, for privacy reasons, encourage students to use a screen name instead of their full names. This little bit of anonymity still puts the writing/writer at risk since the writing is public, but not the student.