Saturday, January 17, 2009

Students Experiencing Access Denied Messages

We’ve had several instances when students have not been able to access course content (such as the syllabus, files within lessons, and so on) and receive an “Access Denied” message instead. In most cases we’re finding this occurs when the course loses access to the Learning Object Repository (LOR). In other words, the content was linked to an object in the instructor's personal LOR and the link fails. We’re not exactly sure why this has occurred (see below), but here’s the solution:
  1. Log-in to your LOR (use the Learning Object Repository button on the left margin of the ANGEL screen) and select the link to the personal LOR.
  2. Select the Manage tab.
  3. Select the Course and Group Access link and click My Courses (right column).
  4. Then select the check box in front of the desired course(s) and click Add Selected.
  5. The LOR should now appear on the left-side of the screen as one of the Current Associations.

The links should now work (ask your students to verify this).

While this solution is a temporary fix,the real issue is why this is occurring. It seems to occur either when courses are copied from a source course to a production course or during the batch course creation process (we're not using XEI yet to integrate between SunGard Banner and ANGEL). So, is the link to the Course Editor’s personal LOR not being established by the Manage > Import Wizard > Copy Course process or is it not being created during the batch creation process? In other words, if a faculty member has an ANGEL course with a personal LOR and additional courses are added, why isn't that personal LOR automatically attached to the new course(s)?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Jonathan,

It seems that we are doing the same things at the same time. We piloted Angel 7.3 in November, we had few issues, however, after applying the December update our students are also getting the Access Denied error amongst other Discussion based issues.

We structure our courses somewhat differently, (Centrally managed and developed LOR's and Master Courses). I tried giving the course sections direct access to our LOR's yesterday, but still no joy. Students still receive Access Denied messages.

Is there anything else you can think of? Angel Support has been less that helpful in resolving this so far.

Great Blog

Jonathan Blair

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