Question

 I have offshore students who need access to my WebCT unit - but they are not enrolled at VU. How can they be granted access?

Answer

Sometimes you need to grant immediate access to a student who is not officially enrolled (or not yet enrolled) but has a legitimate reason for accessing your unit.

If a new student does not yet appear on VUSIS,  they should apply to ITS for an email account and an LDAP password before the system will recognise them. This may be difficult if the student is not studying at VU. In any event, the process can take some time.

A possible'fix' - albeit not ideal ...

WebCT users are 'authenticated' (identified and allowed into WebCT using a username and password) by our VU-based LDAP system. But there is also a separate WebCT authentication method which allows us to set up a completely separate WebCT account with a username and password of our choice.

In special circumstances, a WebCT administrator (ITS Helpdesk, Vyt Karazija or Lisa Curran) can create a separate 'WebCT/Blackboard' authenticated account for students.

However, this is not only inadvisable, but contrary to preferred operating procedure. If those students do eventually get added to the VU system through normal channels, there will be duplicate WebCT accounts for them - and this can cause operational problems, inaccurate logging statistics, can impact on our WebCT licence conditions, and may possibly contribute to global warming ...

In summary, you can't add the non-VU student yourself. Please request an administrator to do this, be prepared to make a case for the addition of that person and to manage that person's accounts to minimise any double account problems.

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