Features and Related Features

When you navigate to a page that hosts several features, the features typically are displayed smaller than they would be if you maximized them, which you can do by clicking on the name of the feature. The initial, smaller view of the feature is the default view, and the larger view is the maximized view. Sometimes the maximized view includes more content or options than the default view.

Some features can be added to your course context multiple times. Others can exist only once. Each occurrence of a feature is a called a feature instance. For example, your context might have several instances of the Forums feature, each devoted to a different subject. But the context can have only one instance of the Attendance feature. The behavior and rules governing each feature are major topics of this guide.

There are two levels of permissions that pertain to features:

Details on managing permissions specific to the features are described throughout this guide, usually under headings labeled “Managing Permissions.”

If appropriate, you can augment your course context by adding pages to it. For details on adding a page to your context, see Working with Pages.

If you have a large number of pages to add, you might want to group the pages into a subsection. When you do this, you are essentially creating a sub-context to your course context. A context is governed by its own set of context-specific roles. So, a sub-context that you create will not be able to use roles that you defined at the higher level (the course context). This might be desirable if you want to put another role in charge of managing the sub-context but not have that role be able to manage the course in general. For more details on subsections, see Working with Subsections.