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Deploying a Survey that is Visible Based on Role on the Front Page

Site Administrators can use the front page to deploy site-wide survey(s) and can also control who sees what version of a survey based on user role. The surveys appear on the MySites (Front Page) page upon login. This example is for the Instructor Student Survey, which was deployed to two different populations. If you are deploying a survey to only one group then you can alter these steps accordingly.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Only one site-wide survey can be administered at a time. For this reason, it is imperative that you obtain CIG approval.

Part 1: Making your lists to populate the front page:

  1. Go to User Bulk Actions in the Admin Panel and use the Filters (Show Advanced) to generate one group (Students in this example) and download this list as a csv file.
  2. Repeat the steps above to get the second list (Instructor for this example). You can do filters based on term, if desired. For each category add that list to Selected Users and repeat for additional Categories and/or term).
  3. For each list you do, make sure one of your filters is Authentication = Shibboleth. This is an important step because Moodle makes you specify this when uploading your users into the Front Page. See screen shot below (default values).
  4. Once you have your list the way you want it, go to Selected Users (make sure they are selected) and choose Download.
  5. On CCLE, students and instructors share roles, so it very important to remove duplicates (your survey may not work as expected if you don’t). Use the remove duplicates feature in Excel (merge your instructor list into the student list and then remove duplicates).


    *Why is this step necessary? Moodle filters are limited and instructors share role with students. For example, if you were to make a filter that included Instructors and then filter by Students, the result would be only only Instructors that also have Student roles. The objective is to get a full list of students and then eliminate those students who also have the role of student.

  6. Now you should have two lists (instructor and student) that do not contain duplicates.
  7. Specify new labels in excel called role1 and course1 for each list
  8. For instructors use the Non-editing instructor role (role ID = “4”). Using this role ensures that instructors will NOT have editing rights to the front page. Just put the number in the column in excel.
  9. For students use the Student role (role ID = “5”). Just put the number in the column in excel.
  10. For both lists put ccle in the course1 field (this is the shortname of the front page)

Part 2: Upload your files into the Front Page roles

  1. Go to Upload Users on Admin Panel and select each of your files to upload.
  2. Make sure settings look like this:
  3. Your front page will now be populated with the new roles. (To check go to Front Page roles in the Admin Panel.)
  4. Go to front page and Turn Editing On to see front page blocks. Turn on the Menu block and add a questionnaire.
  5. Make two surveys for each group
  6. Hide the Menu Block
  7. Make an html block and paste the links to the survey into each block and label accordingly
  8. Set the permissions on each block (Students cannot view Faculty Survey and vice versa). (In this example, the Instructor Survey block has for the student role: view block = prohibit.)
  9. Set the permissions on both html blocks so that Guests and Supporting Admins cannot see the surveys.
  10. Test your surveys with actual users to ensure it is working correctly.
  11. When your survey is ready to go live, go to the front page blocks and click the eyeball to unhide.
    You can contact the author of this article with questions.
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