For Centres’ member-admins
1. Context
The DIGI-FACE platform is the new digital home for the Centres of African Excellence. It connects the Centres of African Excellence, their lecturers, their staff, their students and their alumni through providing them with teaching, learning, research and communication opportunities.
The platform was created to be a useful, powerful, reliable and trustworthy space that provide verified and validated information on the Centres and on their members.
To provide reliable and trustworthy data DIGI-FACE ensures, in cooperation with the Centre Coordinators and selected responsible Member-admins for each Centre, that all information and data provided are correct and correspond to the reality. All DIGI-FACE members are given the opportunity to create their own reliable digital identities. The information the members provide therefore needs to match with the reality.
Member access is granted to all students, alumni, postgraduates, researchers, staff, lecturers and any other persons otherwise affiliated with a Centre of African Excellence.
An overview of the different roles can be found in Annex 1 or here.
This document explains briefly how verification of said user data takes place.
2. Data that requires verification by member-admin(s)
To validate the user data of a registered user who claims to be part of a Centre, the respective Member-admin(s)need(s) to verify that the data entered by the user is correct. Verification of the user data of persons affiliated with the various Centres can only be undertaken reliably by Centre staff. Therefore, the Coordinators and the Member-adminsof a respective Centre are required to verify the inserted user date.
Please note that Member-admins will be required to verify that the following data is indeed correct:
- Name – (Name Surname)
- Centre – (only users who claim to be part of a respective Centre need to be verified)
- Status – (list describing the different users’ status can be found in Annex 2 or here)
- Country of origin – (country of birth)
- Current country – (country member currently resides in)
Only in the event that the Member-admin approves the data inserted by the user (indicating that it is correct), and that the user belongs to the respective Centre, will the registered user be granted member rights on DIGI-FACE.
In cases where the data provided at registration was not correct, the Member-admin can request that the data be corrected.
In cases where a user does not belong to the Centre and/or to the African Excellence Programme, the Member-admin can reject the user’s request to become a member. Then the registered user will not be granted member rights but will remain a Guest user.
3. Specific Member-admins responsible for data verification
Besides populating the Centre information pages, the Project Coordinator of each Centre (German coordinator) is responsible for the verification of users belonging to his/her Centre and that are registered on DIGI-FACE. This process has been put in place to ensure that member data is always consistent and correct.
The Project Coordinator is pre-set as a Member-admin and is also responsible for verifying the data of users who indicate that they belong to that respective Centre.
These Member-admins are free to nominate others as additional Member-admins who can share in the task and take on some of the responsibility when it comes to verifying the registered users. Each Centre can therefore decide for themselves how they will handle the process and who will take over the responsibility of data verification.
Please inform Kehl of any additional person who will be acting as a Member-admin responsible for user data verification at your Centre.
The Project Coordinators are asked to instruct additional Member-admins as to what the role entails so that they are also able to ensure that the task of verifying user data is handled correctly.
Please ensure that the reaction time at your Centre does not exceed two days when a new user registers. This will help ensure that the newly-registered user remains motivated to use DIGI-FACE and to complete his/her profile.
4. Process of user data verification
Whenever a new user registers on DIGI-FACE, the Member-admin(s) of the Centre to which the user indicated he/she belongs, will receive an email notification.
The Member-admin(s) then need to check the data provided in the email (see also point 2.).
After checking the respective data, the following scenarios are possible:
a) Scenario A.
Registered user belongs to the indicated Centre and the provided date are correct:
- In that case, the member-admin needs to approve the user by clicking on “Approve”.
- The user will then be informed via mail about the approval and be granted a member role on DIGI-FACE.
b) Scenario B.
Registered user does not belong to the indicated Centre and/or is not affiliated to the African Excellence Programme
- In that case, the member-admin needs to “reject” the user by clicking on the link in the mail (b.).
- The user will then be informed via mail that the member-admin did not approve him/her as a member and that he/she stays in the Guest role on DIGI-FACE.
c) Scenario C.
Registered user belongs to the indicated Centre but the provided data are not fully correct:
- In that case, the member-admin clicks on the link in the mail (c.) and can then indicates which data was not correctly inserted.
- The user will then be informed via mail about the respective indication. The user will have the opportunity to correct his/her data and request once again to become a member.
- The member-admin will receive a respective notification about the correction of inserted data via mail (similar to registration notification).
- The member-admin checks again the data which are provided in the email.
- After checking the respective data, the member-admin, depending on the correctness of data, has to select among a. b. or c. (approve, reject, request data correction) and the respective process will be (re-)initiated.
5. Back-end overview list of Centre users
To get a good overview of the different users belonging to a Centre, and in the event that notification emails were not directly responded to, the Member-admins can also access an overview list on the back-end of DIGI-FACE.
The list can be found on the back-end of the DIGI-FACE site in the left bar at the very bottom (“Users of my Centre”). To access the back-end overview, you can also click here.
On the back-end you will find this list that offers an overview of all the registered users belonging to the Centre (or who indicated that they belong to the respective Centre upon registration).
User data verification can be performed right from this overview list by initiating the process, like it is described in point 4.
The list shows the following data:
- Username (the name inserted by the user during the registration process)
- The status of the verification process:
- Approved = when the user has been given member rights (see 4.a)
- Pending = when the user awaits action from the Member-admin (approving the request, rejecting the request or requesting a correction)
- Incomplete = the Member-admin requested that the user correct some of their data (see 4.c)
- Rejected = the user’s data was not approved by the Member-admin (see 4.b)
- Role on the platform – (Guest, Member, Member-admin, Admin)
- Registered – (date of registration)
- Centre – (only users who claim to be part of a respective Centre need to be verified)
- Country of origin – (country of birth)
- Current country – (current country of residence)
- User status – (a list outlining the different users’ statuses can be found in Annex 2 or here)
- Action (select among):
- Approve > user becomes a “Member” (see 4.a)
- Reject > user stays “Guest” (see 4.b)
- Request Correction > Member-admin indicates what data needs to be corrected > user can request verification again once data has been updated (see 4.c)
6. Graphic overview of user data verification process
Annex 1: #
Roles on the DIGI-FACE Platform:
A Guest may attend open Moodle courses and navigate through the open information elements on the platform (information about the African Excellence Programme and the Centres, blogs, publications, the alumni network and the members section).
A Member is a registered user belonging to the African Excellence Programme or to one of the Centres of African Excellence. A Member can create his or her own profile, post a blog, participate in Moodle courses in which he or she is enrolled, create his or her own project and share a publication on the platform. Member access is granted to all students, participants, alumni, postgraduates, researchers, staff and lecturers of a Centre of African Excellence or to persons otherwise affiliated with a Centre.
A Member-admin is a member that has admin rights for centre-specific elements. Practically this means that, in addition to being a Member, a Member-admin has the right to edit the respective Centre’s information pages. With regard to quality issues a Member-admin has special responsibilities (i.e. this person functions as the user-administrator of a respective Centre, is responsible for the verification of users’ profile data and the confirmation of students’ external certificates amongst other duties).
An Admin is responsible for the maintenance, configuration, coding and reliable operation of the platform. Members of the DIGI-FACE development team are assigned the role of Admin on this platform.
Annex 2: #
User status on the DIGI-FACE Platform:
- Student of a Centre of Excellence
A student of a Centre of Excellence is a student currently enrolled in a study programme at one of the African Centres of Excellence. - Funded Student with DAAD Scholarship of a Centre of Excellence
A DAAD-funded student is someone who funs their studies through a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). - Alumni of a Centre of Excellence
Alumni are former students of a Centre of Excellence and, in many cases, part of one of the centres’ alumni associations or of the alumni association African Excellence Network which is also known as “Tumefika”. - Funded Alumni with DAAD Scholarship of a Centre of Excellence
DAAD-funded alumni are former students of a Centre of Excellence and, in many cases, part of a Centres’ alumni association or of the alumni association African Excellence Network Tumefika. In addition to that, this person would have received funding from DAAD via a scholarship during his or her period of study at the Centre. - Lecturer of a Centre of Excellence
A lecturer performs teaching and pedagogic work at one of the Centres. - Staff of a Centre of Excellence
Staff of a Centre of Excellence is anybody who works in the framework of a Centre (i.e. as coordinator, financial/administrative support, IT-support, etc.). - Staff of DIGI-FACE
A DIGI-FACE staff member is someone who works in the framework of DIGI-FACE at one of the project’s consortium partners (i.e. as coordinator, financial/administrative support, IT-support, learning designer, administrator etc.). - Staff of DAAD
A DAAD staff member is anybody who works at DAAD offices. - External Student
An external student is a student who is not part of a Centre of Excellence. - External Lecturer
An external lecturer is a lecturer who is not part of a Centre of Excellence. - External Staff
External staff is any staff who is not part of a Centre of Excellence. - External User/Other
An external user/other is anybody who does not belong under one of the other listed users.
