Return to ForceIDChange.tex CVS log

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- Modify changes in lonuserutils.pm rev. 1.161, so "Force ID change" message
  is not shown to users self-creating accounts.
- Wording change to labels for "Force ID change" and "Update ID in courses"
  message, to make them shorter, so "Login Data" can still float into right
  column.
- Add help document to explain ramifications of forcing ID change.
  - eliminate unhelpful: "only do if you know what you are doing".

\label{ForceIDChange}
Although the username is the principal unique identifier for a user in LON-CAPA, the student/employee ID
is a secondary identifier, which needs to be defined (and unique) for certain applications.

The default is not to allow the student/employee ID for an existing user to be changed when  
modifying a user's information in course, author or domain context.

This default can be overridden by checking the ``Force change of existing ID'' checkbox. If that is
done the old ID will be replaced with the new ID.  (Note: the new ID can not be blank; i.e., once an ID
has been set for a user, it can be changed to a different ID, but not set to be null).

A side effect of updating a student/employee ID is that the database file used for the quick  
look-up of uername for a specified student/employee ID will be updated. This can potentially impact 
bubblesheet grading, if there is a possibility that student/employee IDs are not unique.

However, there is no requirement to set a student/employee ID for a user, and you will not encounter
issues doing that unless you attempt bubblesheet grading or uploading scores from a csv file 
containing IDs and points as column data.  If either of those actions are likely to occur in courses
in your domain you should attempt to ensure that student/employee IDs are unique.

Your domain may have been configured to automatically update student/employee IDs from an institutional
data source, and similarly, IDs may be retrieved (and set) automatically when creating a new user, if the
username is for an institutional user, and your domain has been configured to support that.

Individual courses contain their own database files of class rosters, which include a copy of each student's ID.  If a student/employee ID is changed by a Domain Coordinator, there is an option to propagate that change to the individual classlist database files for courses in which the student has a role that is currently active, or one that will become active in the future.