Gaggle Account Access Levels

Introduction

Gaggle has introduced several new user access levels and modified the existing user access levels. These changes should not affect your existing accounts other than a simple name change.

For full explanation of each access level please refer to the table below. If you want information about what happened to the old levels please refer to the bottom of this page.

What Access Levels Does My School Need?

Each new school on the Gaggle system was created with a School Master account. The School Master account is all that you needed to setup your school. The School Master can control everything and create new accounts for both educators and students.

In most cases, you will probably want to setup your teachers with School Administrator accounts. This gives your teachers the most power and flexibility.

If you want to ensure more privacy for your students, you should create only a few School Administrators and the rest of your personnel should be given Teacher accounts. This is especially appropriate for high schools.

Students should be assigned to the Student access level. In rare instances, you may want to give them more restrictive accounts such as School Only access.

Please remember that administrative access levels can only edit accounts with access lower than their own account. For instance, a School Master can edit a School Administrator account. However, a School Administrator can not alter the account of another School Administrator.

Access Levels

District Master — This access level is only available for district personnel. It enables an account holder to edit several school groups. They can create users in each school group, change passwords, monitor mail, change blocked word lists etc.

When a District Master logs on they will see a link on the left side of the screen called Schools. Selecting this link brings up a list of all schools in which they have privileges. Clicking on a school name will allow the District Master to make changes in the selected school group.

Only a Gaggle representative can create a user with the District Master access level.

District Administrator - This access level is only available for district personnel. It enables an account holder to edit several school groups. They can create users in each school group, change passwords, monitor mail, change blocked word lists etc.

When a District Administrator logs on they will see a link on the left side of the screen called Schools. Selecting this link brings up a list of all schools in which they have privileges. Clicking on a school name will allow the District Administrator to make changes in the selected school group.

Only a District Master and above can create this account. After creating the account, the District Master must edit the school list for the user. Clicking on a District Administrator’s name will bring up the standard User Data screen. The screen will contain an additional item called Group List. Enter the school numbers in this box. The school numbers are assigned by the Gaggle system.

School Master - This is the new name for the Group Master access level. It has the same system privileges as before.

It is the appropriate access level for the Principal, School Technology Coordinator or the teacher who initiated the Gaggle Service. There can be more than one School Master.

The School Master has full control over the school’s Gaggle account. He or she can create and delete users, change passwords for users, monitor mail, change blocked word lists and more.

School Administrator - This is the new name for the Group Administrator access level. It has the same system privileges as before.

It is the appropriate for any teacher or staff member who would need to edit or monitor other users’ accounts. This access level can create other users, delete users, read the mail of other accounts, change the Blocked Word List, change the Blocked Address List and much more.

Teacher — The Teacher account is like a limited School Administrator. The Teacher can only edit the accounts of students who are assigned to them. The Teacher cannot read the mail of students from the rest of the school. This user level is designed to ensure appropriate privacy within a school.

Teacher accounts can delete their own student users and reassign their Student accounts to a new access level. Teacher accounts cannot edit the Blocked Address List or the Blocked Word List.

Staff - The Staff access level is like a regular Internet e-mail account. Staff e-mail is not filtered by the system. However if the need arises, School Administrators and above can edit a Staff account and review message content.

The Staff access level is ideal for teachers’ aides and front office personnel.

Trusted Parent - The Parent access levels are used for two purposes.

(1) It allows parents to monitor their children's Gaggle activities much like a teacher monitors a student's account. The Parent can view all sent, received and deleted mail, view Digital Locker Files, view the student's Blog and Profile page. Once the Parent account is created you must locate the children of the parent and associate the parent account with the child's Gaggle account.

(2) The Parent account is a full internet email account and can be used to communicate with anyone on the internet. It's a great way for schools to communicate with parents using the power of email since all parents can be found in one easy to use directory.

The Trusted Parent access level is identical to the Regular Parent account with one difference. Trusted Parent accounts are allowed to email with all students within the school or district even the children of other parents.

We do not recommend the 'Trusted Parent' access level. Allowing parents to contact the children of other parents may lead to serious misunderstandings or inappropriate behavior.

Parent email accounts are filtered for offensive words and pornographic content just like the student accounts.

Regular Parent - The Regular Parent accounts can email anywhere in the world except to the Gaggle addresses of other children at the school or district. (In general, we do not think it is a good idea to let parents email all students in the school.)

We recommend the 'Regular Parent' access level as the safest choice.

Student - This student level is like a regular Internet e-mail account. Students can communicate with any address on the Internet subject to your restrictions. The communication is limited only by your Blocked Address List.

Incoming and outgoing messages must pass through the Blocked Address List. The Blocked Address List can be set to allow or deny specific e-mail addresses and domain names.

Student accounts are filtered for inappropriate language by the Blocked Word List.

Gaggle Only - This user can only send to other Gaggle accounts hosted by Gaggle. This includes the addresses of Gaggle users with different domain names. Messages to or from outside of the Gaggle Network are diverted to the assigned administrator. Incoming and outgoing messages must also pass through the Blocked Address List and the Blocked Word List.

District Only - This user can only send to other Gaggle accounts that match the district name. Messages to or from outside of the district are diverted to the assigned administrator. Incoming and outgoing messages must also pass through the Blocked Address List and the Blocked Word List.

School Only - This user can only send to other Gaggle accounts that match the school name. Messages to or from outside of the school are diverted to the assigned administrator. Incoming and outgoing messages must also pass through the Blocked Address List and the Blocked Word List.

Class Only - This user can only send to other Gaggle accounts that have the same administrator. Messages to or from outside of the class are diverted to the assigned administrator. Incoming and outgoing messages must also pass through the Blocked Address List and the Blocked Word List.

Admin Only - This user can only send to the Group Master or Group Administrators on the system. Messages to or from anyone else are diverted to the assigned administrator. Incoming and outgoing messages must also pass through the Blocked Address List and the Blocked Word List.

Read Only - This user can only read their mail. They cannot send any mail.

Suspended - This user cannot access the Gaggle system. Message are still received and kept.

Reserved - This user cannot access the Gaggle system. The user name is reserved. Old mail is kept on the system, but new mail is rejected. New messages sent to the account are bounced back to the sender as undeliverable.

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