Re: [seul-edu] App idea: classroom permissions manager

[Tonnesen Steve <tonnesen@cmsd.bc.ca>]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2000, Doug Loss wrote:

> I think we're talking about two related but separate ideas here.  First, moving
> students between groups so as to give them access to previously denied
> programs.  This can easily be done, probably via K12Admin and (possibly some
> added code).  This would make menu items or icons that previously didn't do
> anything now function for the student.
> 
> Second, reconfiguring the user interface on the user's workstation.  This will
> be more difficult.  I'm pretty sure that the config files on most window
> managers or desktop environments are only read at startup or when the user
> forces it via a "refresh" (I think that's what Windowmaker calls it).  Could we
> and would we want to forcibly edit and refresh the config files on the students'
> workstations, adding new icons and menu items?  That could be confusing all by
> itself.  It's worth talking about.


I could see having a folder called "Games" in the student's home folder
with permissions normally set so that they can't open it.  If the teacher
clicks on the "Play Games" checkbox for that student, the permissions are
changed so that the student can open that folder and click on the links to
the games in there.

This is far from foolproof.  The student has to actually have permissions
to run the games from somewhere else.  If they found that other location,
they could just run them from there.  I believe that you can't change the
group membership of a user on the fly (they have to log out and back in
again). 

What I would _REALLY_ like to see is better (more fine-grained) file
permissions so that I could allow/disallow individual students from
running a program through the file permissions.  As it is now, I can only
allow a disallow a group of students to run a program and add all the
students to that group (and changes to group membership don't take effect
until the next login).


Steve Tonnesen.