Beacon uses a concept of roles in order to determine what access users have to information, content creation, data visualizations, and settings.  A user can only hold one role at a time and roles are hierarchical in nature.  Users are also able to be connected to each other, allowing for networks of relationship which expands the extent of information that is available to more frequently connected users. Below is a description of each role.

Student (level 1)
The Student role is the default role in Beacon, which means that all users start with this role and then can be elevated to higher-level roles if needed.

Users with the Student role can view:

• View their contact information
• Their personal SSI(not including predictive indicators) or CSA results.
  •  Allowing students to see their assessment results is optional and decided during the implementation process.
• Recommendations based on their assessment results
• Members of their personal Success Network
• Alerts, Encouragements & Updates (as well as the comments associated with them) that have been explicitly shared with the them
• Their personal involvement record (requires the use of Anthology Engage)
• Any message that has been sent to them through the system

Peer Advisor* (level 2)

The Peer Advisor role is intended for peer mentors, student office staff, and other employees that should have restricted access to student information.

Users with the Peer Advisor role have all of the privileges of the previous role & will be able to view:

• Information for students they are connected to
• Assessment results (not including predictive indicators) of students that they are connected to
• Recommendations based on assessment results for the students they are connected to
• Members of the student's success network
• Alerts, Encouragements & Updates (as well as the comments associated with them) that have been created and shared with them
• Messages that have been sent to users that they are connected to

Advisor* (level 3)

The Advisor role is intended for professional faculty and staff members of the institution.  Individual student information that is visible at this level may be considered core elements of the student academic record that is referred to within the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Users with the role of Advisor have the all of the privileges of all previous roles plus:

• Will only be able to see students they are connected to in the search and their network area.
• The demographic profile information of users that they are connected to
• The academic record of users that they are connected to
  • Includes course enrollment, projected academic performance, actual academic performance, course attendance
• Predictive indicators of student success

Generalist (level 4)

The Generalist role is intended for staff that serve in an advisory capacity of an unknown set of students.  This role is great for situations where the Generalist does not have a specific portfolio of students, but rather serves students on a walk-in basis. Users holding the Generalist role are functionally connected to all users, however are not natively displayed in the success network of other users.

Users with the role of Generalist have the all of the privileges of all previous roles.

Executive (level 5)

The Executive role is intended for staff members who are interested in total population dynamics, performance, and notation.  Similar to the Generalist role users holding the Executive role are functionally connected to all users, however are not natively displayed in the success network of other users.

Users with the role of Executive have the all of the privileges of all previous roles plus:

• Aggregate data visualizations and reporting
• View users and their connections

Administrator (Level 6)

The Administrator role is intended for staff members who are considered the primary administrative user or owner of Beacon.  Administrative users have a significant level of additional power, including the ability to edit and/or delete content that other users have created.  It is advised to limit the number of users holding the Administrator role.

Users with the role of Administrator have the all of the privileges of all previous roles plus:

• Manage the assignment of roles to users
• Configure the site’s presentation to users
• Create and deploy administrations of assessment instruments
• Download detailed assessment response and scoring data
• Identify and configure response trigger and data insight sources
• Bulk import and export data about users and connections 

* Its important to note that the term "Advisor" is never used to describe a user outside of the administrative context of roles.  This term is not visible by a user holding the role nor anyone who views the information about the user.

Sample Student Report View

Advisors, Generalists, Executives, and Administrators will be able to see everything on the student report.

Peer Advisors will not see the items highlighted in blue.

 

 Permissions to Student Reports

	Roles that have access
First name, Last name, Email address, Photo	All
Academics Tab	Advisor & higher
Assessment Tab	Students/Peer Advisors - academic success & retention probabilities not shown Advisor & higher
Demographic Tab	Advisor & higher
Involvement Tab	Students Advisor & higher
Files Tab	Peer Advisor & higher
Success Network Members	All
Notations	Varies based on notations creation