• Table of Contents
• Previous Next

Controlling User Access to iTunes U Pages Using Advanced Access

Choose advanced access controls when you have both public and private content, define custom credentials for your users, and use a transfer script to access your site. To use advanced access controls to define access to your iTunes U pages you must first turn on advanced access controls, and then assign access levels to control user permissions and actions to iTunes U pages.

To turn on advanced access controls:

1. Log in to iTunes U as the primary administrator (using your Apple ID account and your site’s administrator signin URL).

2. Click Edit Site Settings in the Tools area.

3. Choose Advanced in the Site Access Control section to specify you want to use advanced access controls for your site.

4. Click Save.

   iTunes U returns you to your root Welcome page or Public Feature page, hides the Page Access option from the Tools area, and displays the Edit Access link in the Tools area so you can assign access levels to credentials to control the actions users can perform within your iTunes U site.

   The Edit Access link is available to all administrators on all Welcome, Public Feature, and Course pages.

5. Click Logout.

There are many strategies for defining the access your users can have to your site content. For example, if your site has the following structure:

And you have an instructor and student with the following credentials:

• credentials=Instructor@urn:mace:cupertinouniversity.edu:classes:fall06:eecs302:02;​Instructor@urn:mace:cupertinouniversity.edu:classes:fall06:eecs250:01;​Authenticated@urn:mace:itunesu.com:sites:cupertinouniversity.edu;​All@urn:mace:itunesu.com:sites:cupertinouniversity.edu

• credentials=Student@urn:mace:cupertinouniversity.edu:classes:fall06:eecs302:02;​StudentBody@urn:mace:cupertinouniversity.edu:example;​Authenticated@urn:mace:itunesu.com:sites:cupertinouniversity.edu;​All@urn:mace:itunesu.com:sites:cupertinouniversity.edu

You might want to give the instructors access to edit, upload, and download to their specific Course pages and nothing else, while giving each student download only access to his or her specific Course page as well as Events and Campus Community pages.

For this example, you would apply the following access levels to the credentials.

In this example, the instructor for eecs250 and eecs302 has the following edit view of your iTunes U site.

And the eecs302 student has the following view and download access permissions to your iTunes U site.

To assign access levels and control user permissions and actions to iTunes U pages:

1. Log in to iTunes U as an administrator or another user with editing access.

2. Click Edit Access in the Tools area for the page where you want to define user access.

3. Choose the section or page where you want to define user access from the pop-up menu.

   iTunes U displays the built-in and custom permissions defined for the currently selected section or page, or any of the section’s or page’s ancestors, along with the associated Course page Group Access Label, if applicable.

   Use the Edit Access page to assign user access at the page level. For details about how to assign user access at the individual group level, see the “Assigning User Access to Groups.”

   

4. Click the Add icon to define a new permission (credential, user access level, and label).

   • Click the Edit icon to edit an existing permission (credential, user access level, and label). When editing an existing permission, if the credential was defined in a section or page other than the current one, you can only edit the access level and Group Access Label; you cannot edit the credential definition itself.

5. Type a user credential. For example: Student@urn:mace:cupertinouniversity.edu:classes:fall06:eecs302:02.

   • The credential you enter must match the credential you send using your transfer script.

   • If you used a unique page identifier in your Course page Identifier field, type a reference to the identifier. For example: Student@urn:mace:cupertinouniversity.edu:classes:${IDENTIFIER}. If you do not use a unique page identifier, you must assign credential access permissions to the Course page one credential at a time. For more information, see “Using Identifier-Based Credentials.”

   • Each credential name you enter must be unique. If you enter a duplicate credential name, iTunes U does not save the duplicate credential.

6. Choose the access level you want to assign to the credential from the Access Level pop-up menu:

   • No Access. Credentials assigned No Access cannot see the page.

   • Download. Credentials assigned Download can access the page and download content from the page.

   • Shared. Credentials assigned Shared can access the page and upload and download content from the page.

   • Edit. Credentials assigned Edit can access the page and upload, download, and delete content in the page, as well as edit groups (create, delete, rename), links (create, delete, rename), images, and text information in the page. Users with Edit access to a Course page can also use the Access pop-up menu in the Access area within a Course page to define group-level access for the page. The user can assign group-level access for other users of the Course page, but cannot change his or her own access. iTunes U displays the current user’s credential and Edit access as read-only in the Access pop-up menu within the Course page.

   The access level you select determines the permissions and actions a user can perform in any specific iTunes U page, including whether they can even view the page.

7. Type a label for the credential in the Group Access Label field.

   When you edit a Course page and assign access per group, iTunes U displays this label in the Access pop-up menu in the Access area within the Course page. If you do not specify a label, you cannot assign group-level access for the credential.

   Note: Group Access Labels do no apply to feed Course pages.

8. Click the Save icon to save the credential, access level, and label information.

   • Click the Delete icon to delete the selected credential, access level, and label information.

9. Repeat steps 4 through 8 for each credential you want to assign access permissions.

10. Click Done.

11. Click Logout.

The access level you define for a credential in a Welcome page, Public Feature page, or Course page is inherited throughout all descendant pages and groups within your site, unless the access level is explicitly overridden by a descendant page or group definition. For example, if you explicitly define credential access in a Course page group, and then update access for that credential in the parent page, iTunes U does not change the group-level access for the credential. For more information on group-level access, see “Assigning User Access to Groups.”

In this section:

Public Access Using Advanced Access Controls
Assigning User Access to Groups
Using Identifier-Based Credentials

---