Category

Introduction Category

Category - Introduction

Categories are recommended for all ILIAS installations that contain more than a handful of objects. Categories belong (like courses, groups, and folders) to the container objects in ILIAS. They, therefore, contain other contents and serve to structure the repository.

A category can contain all kinds of child objects: These include learning objects like forums, wikis, and learning modules, but also other container objects like courses and groups. Categories can also be nested within each other.

Categories are, therefore, suitable for bundling offered content and presenting it orderly. You can use individual categories, for example, to organize all the content of a department or division of your company. With the help of the rights settings, you can ensure that only the members of this department or division have access to the content.

Conversely, it is also conceivable to release a single category for external visitors within an ILIAS installation that is protected, for example, to give future students or job applicants a first look at your learning materials.

Creating and managing so-called 'local users' for categories is also possible. This allows the decentralized administration of users without access to the actual administration of ILIAS.

Category, folder, course, or group: What is what?
Four objects are available for structuring content in ILIAS: Categories, Folders, Courses, and Groups. These are called "container objects" because they contain other objects.
Note: When you delete a container object, you automatically delete all the child objects contained in that container object.

Each of these container objects is used in different contexts and accordingly offers different possibilities:

• Category: serves to structure the repository. A category can contain further (sub)categories, courses, groups, and all other objects. Categories are generally visible to all users; normal users can read their content. To restrict access to categories, changes must be made to the permissions.
• Folder: Used to structure courses and groups where categories or other courses cannot be created. A folder can also contain other (sub)folders.
• Course: Can contain groups and folders, but no categories or other courses. A course - unlike category and folder - has members. Access to the course is restricted to the members, even without further changes to the permissions.
• Group: It may contain other groups and folders but not categories or courses. A group's availability to learners can be limited to a specific time period - as with the course. A group - like a course - has members. Access to the group is restricted to the members, even without further changes to the permissions.

Category settings

Overview of category settings

In the settings, you define how your category looks to users and what features it offers. In the Settings tab, you can

• change the name of the category
• define how the category content is sorted,
• offer knowledge management with taxonomies
• show or hide the info tab or news block,
• insert multilingual page content,
• enable filters for working with a large number of objects.

Rename category

You want to change the title of your category.

1. Open the Settings tab of the desired category.
2. To rename your category, write the desired name in the input field of the Title section.
3. In the Description section, you can add an explanatory subtitle, which will be displayed in a smaller font under the category title. You do not need to enter a description.
4. Click the Save button.
5. ILIAS displays the modified category title.

Sorting the contents of the category

By default, ILIAS sorts all contents of a category within the object type blocks alphabetically by their title. However, you can also sort the contents according to your needs. In doing so, you have several options. You can:

• combine the content of different types into blocks using object blocks and place them anywhere on the page.
• choose between different automatic or manual sorting of the contents.

Automatic and manual sorting of the contents

You want to sort the contents of a category within the object type blocks.

1. Open the Settings tab of the desired category. In the Display section, in the Sorting section, you can specify in which order the category contents should be displayed. You have several options to choose from. Activate the radio button next to the desired sorting.
   Alphabetically by title: the category contents within the object type blocks are automatically sorted by their title. You can choose between ascending or descending sorting directions. This sorting is helpful for large sets of files named by the author, for example. However, alphabetical sorting often does not provide a didactically useful order for small sets of items.
   By creation date: The category contents within the object type blocks are sorted by their creation date. You can choose between an ascending or descending sort direction. This is useful if you regularly add new content to the category and always want the newest content to be at the top of the list.
   Manual: The category's contents within the object type blocks are manually arranged in the order you want. By activating the radio button, you can specify new objects' position, order, and sorting directions. To make the desired sorting within the object types blocks, navigate to the Sorting link in the Contents tab.
2. Click the Save button.
3. ILIAS will sort the category content within the object type blocks.

Show or hide the info tab and message block.

You want to show or hide the Info tab and/or the Messages block in the Content tab.

1. Open the Settings tab. Make the desired settings:
   Info Tab: In the Additional Functions section, uncheck the Info Tab checkbox, which is not displayed. When the Info Tab is hidden, users typically do not see another tab, the full tab navigation is not shown, and it gives users a 'slimmer look'. For people with editing rights, the corresponding tabs will still be displayed. Note: The info tab contains information about tags, creation date, and the creator/owner of the category.
   Messages: In the Additional Functions section, uncheck the News checkbox not to display the News block in the Content tab. The News feature automatically creates a message when, for example, a new forum post is written, a new file is uploaded, or a new wiki page is created in courses, groups, or categories. However, instructors (or all users with editing rights) can also write and send messages to the message block. The messages from the block that originate from a course or group are also automatically displayed to the members on their Personal Desktops.
2. Click on the Save button.
3. ILIAS will show/hide the Info tab and/or the Messages block in the Content tab.

For categories with a lot of items: Activate filters

You want to activate filters in the category to get a quick overview of many objects.
If there are many objects in a category, it is recommended to activate the filter. Scenarios in which you find many objects in categories are, for example:

• Campus management or seminar agent system automatically creates masses of courses in a category via an interface.
• Large amounts of files are manually created in a category to digitally store knowledge management.

1. Open the Settings tab in the category.
2. Under Additional functions, activate the Filter checkbox.
   - Also activate the Display if the filter is an empty checkbox to display all content in the category together with the filter. Only if there are so many objects in the category that the loading times would be very long, leave the checkbox unchecked: ILIAS will display an empty category with a filter - only after entering the filter will ILIAS display objects according to the filter criteria.
3. Click on the Filter sub-tab in the settings.
4. Click on Select fields.
5. ILIAS presents the list of filter fields available by default. Click Save.
6. ILIAS displays the table with the selected filter fields in the Filter sub-tab.

For categories with a large number of objects: Apply Filter

You want to apply filters in the category to get an overview of many objects quickly. For example, you want to display all courses in an online category or have some other common characteristic.
Prerequisite: You have activated the filters for categories.

1. Open the Content tab in the category.
2. You will now see the Filter pop-up menu and a slider to the right. Click with the mouse on the slider to activate it.
3. Add the filters using the plus sign.
4. Click Apply.
5. To use another filter...
6. To set multiple filters in one category...

Provide categories in multiple languages.

Multilingual category

You also want to provide the content of your category in another language. Users who use this language as their user language will then automatically see the correct version.

You have the following two options:

• You only want to add the title and description in another language.
• Using the page editor, you also want to add multilingual content to your page.

Users who see the interface in one of the stored languages will then see the category displayed under the translated title, with the translated description and - if added - the translated page content.

Note: Users who use ILIAS in a language not translated here will see the category displayed in the category's default language.

Remove added language

You want to remove a previously added language.

1. Open the Settings tab.
2. Click on the link Multilingualism.
3. ILIAS opens a new page with a list of all currently used languages.
4. Select the checkbox in front of the language you want to remove.    
   Note: You can also select multiple languages. However, the default language of the category cannot be removed.
5. Click the Remove button above or below the list.
6. ILIAS removes the selected language.

Add title and description in another language.

You want to add the title and description in another language.

1. Open the Settings tab.
2. Click on the link Multilingualism.
3. ILIAS opens a new page with a list of all currently used languages.
4. Click on the Add languages button.
5. ILIAS opens the "Add languages" dialog.
6. Select the desired language from the drop-down menu.
   Optional: To add more languages, click the (+) button.
7. Click the Save button.
8. ILIAS returns to the list.
9. Enter the title and description in the new language. You do not need to enter a description.
10. Click the Save button.
11. ILIAS adds the title and description in the desired language.

Note: Users using ILIAS in a language not translated here will see the category in the default category language.

Enable multilingualism for the page editor.

You also want to offer the content of your category in another language. Users who use this language as their user language will then automatically see the correct version.
To do this, you must first enable multilingualism in the category settings and set a default language that will be displayed if there is no translation in the user language.

Using the Page Editor, you want to add content to the category in another language.

1. Open the Settings tab.
2. Click on the link Multilingualism.
3. ILIAS opens a new page with a list of all currently used languages.
4. Click the Activate multilingualism for page editor button.
5. ILIAS opens the "Enable multilingualism for page editor" dialog.
6. Select the desired default language from the drop-down menu. Attention: This selection cannot be changed afterward.
7. Click the Save button.
8. Follow steps 1-11 of the Add title and description in additional languages action guide to add the desired new language.
9. Switch to the Page Editor to add content after activating and selecting the language. There, follow the Add content in another language action guide.

Note: Users using ILIAS in a language not translated here will see the category in the default category language.

Disable multilingual support for the page editor

You want to disable support for multilingual content in the page editor again.

Note: When multilingualism is disabled, only the default language content remains available. All other content will be deleted.

1. Open the Settings tab of the category.
2. Click on the link Multilingualism.
3. ILIAS opens a new page with a list of all currently used languages.
4. Click the Disable multilingualism for page editor button.
5. ILIAS asks you to confirm the deactivation.
6. Click the Confirm button.
7. ILIAS disables support for multilingual content in the page editor.

Manage category users locally

Local user management - introduction

Most of the time, the administrator manages users in ILIAS centrally. However, in some use cases, it can be helpful to distribute the user administration on several shoulders.

This is possible by allowing some specially authorized persons to create and manage users within single categories. These users created within a category will appear in the main administration and are "normal" users, even though they were created in a category.

When does it make sense to distribute the administration of users on several shoulders? We want to give examples:

• A corporation offers e-learning with ILIAS, and the individual subsidiaries are managed as categories on the installation. The user management is not managed centrally, but each subsidiary manages its employees' user accounts in its category. The people who manage the local users should not be able to see the users of other subsidiaries.
• The operator of the ILIAS installation is an education provider; he provides standard content (training for the new Word version, hygiene guidelines, fire protection, and the like). His customers are companies that 'send' employees only to this one online measure and do not want to operate a learning platform themselves. They decide which employees participate and put these persons in 'their' category.
• Several schools use an ILIAS installation together; each school has its category. Teachers can create user accounts for new students and maintain existing user accounts of their students in the category. They do not need access to other schools' administration and student data.

Please make sure that all prerequisites for using local user administration are met.

Prerequisites for local user administration

Several prerequisites must be met to use local user administration. If necessary, contact your ILIAS administrator via the "Contact Administrator" link at the bottom of this page, as only they can make the necessary settings:

• Your administrator must enable local user management for the entire ILIAS installation. He can do this in Administration > User Management > Settings.
• In the category where local user administration is to take place, the affected role (i.e., a role of users who are to be local user administrators) must be assigned the Manage local user accounts right by the platform administrator. The local user administrators will only see the Local user administration tab in the category.

As in the global user administration, a global role must also be assigned to a local user account. To make a global role available for role assignment by local user administrators, it must be explicitly enabled by activating the Allow user assignment for local administrators setting for the corresponding role by the platform administrator.

Note: If this is not the case, local user administration cannot be performed, even if corresponding rights have been assigned.

Local user administrators can create and manage users within a category if these requirements are met.

Adding a new local user in ILIAS

You want to create a new local user.

1. Open the Local User Administration tab in the category.  If you do not see the tab, ensure all prerequisites are met.
2. Click on the Add local user button.
3. ILIAS opens the New User form, where the user's data is entered. Filling in the form follows the same procedure as in the global user administration.
4. Click on the Save button.
5. ILIAS creates a new local user.

Importing users

The work involved in registering users can be significantly reduced if XML import is used instead of manual and individual entry. The XML import also plays an important role when migrating user accounts, e.g., from one ILIAS installation to another.

With the help of a special Excel customization (macro), user data can be brought from an Excel file into an XML format. Hints and a template for such an Excel file can be found here. Please note that the functioning of the macro can be blocked by security settings in Excel or by security software.

You want to import new local users using an XML file.

1. Open the Local User Management tab. If you don't see the tab, ensure all prerequisites are met.
2. Click the Import Users button.
3. ILIAS opens the Import Users form.
4. Under Choose File, select your XML file, and click the Import button.

In the second step of the role assignment, ILIAS asks which roles originally assigned to the user accounts on the new installation should be transferred.

How to proceed in case of data conflicts:

• If Ignore on conflict is selected, ILIAS will ignore an action if it cannot be performed (e.g., an "insert" action will not be performed if a user account with the same username already exists in the database).
• If Update on Conflict is selected, ILIAS will update the user account on the database if the specified action cannot be performed (e.g., an "Insert" action will be replaced by an "Update" action if a user account with the same username already exists in the database).

1. Click on the Import button.
2. ILIAS will import the user accounts.

Perform local user administration.

As a local user administrator, you want to manage the users of the corresponding category. Open in the Local User Administration tab of the category. The following options are available to you:

All local users of the category will be displayed to you. To display only certain users, apply one of the various filter options. In addition to a direct search by user name, you can select, among other things, whether the locally created users, only global users, or all users should be displayed.

• Note: In the administration of the platform, you can specify that local user administrators see only those user accounts created in the local user administration of the corresponding category (or a category below).
• User data management by local user administrators is generally only possible for those users that have been created (or imported) in the corresponding local user administration. You can recognize these by the clickable user name, behind which you will find the same form used to create a user account.

Local user administrators can assign or revoke roles to the users visible to them. To do this, click the Edit link in the Role Assignment column.

• Note: This is possible in any case for local roles of the currently edited category (and possibly subcategories). Global roles, on the other hand, must have been released for local user administrators in the platform's administration.

Removing local users

You want to delete a local user.

1. Open the Local User Administration tab.    
   Note: If the tab is not displayed, ensure all prerequisites are met.
2. Activate the checkbox in front of the desired user.    
   Note: You can also select multiple users. Note that you can only remove locally created users. ILIAS does not display any checkboxes for all other users.
3. Click the Delete button at the top or bottom of the list.
4. ILIAS will ask you to confirm the operation.
5. Click on the Delete button.
6. ILIAS removes the selected user(s).