Overview

Enable Supervisors Mode turns on a special access mode inside the Teacher (Instructor / Lecturer / Educator) portal. When it is switched on, a Teacher who has been designated as the Supervisor of a specific Grade (Program/Year), Group (Section/Class), Subject (Course) or Location (Campus/College) can see, and in some forms manage, the academic records of Students taught by other Teachers within that same Grade, Group, Subject or Location, even though the Supervisor does not personally teach those Students.

In simple terms, this setting allows a small number of trusted staff, such as coordinators, form tutors, or heads of a Program or Subject, to oversee academic data across a wider scope than their own personal teaching timetable, without needing full Administrator rights.

Note: Classter does not enforce any specific job title for a Supervisor. Any user who exists in the system as a Teacher can be assigned as a Supervisor of a Grade, Group, Subject or Location. Titles such as ‘coordinator’ or ‘head of department’ in this article are only examples of how institutions commonly use this role.

What This Setting Does

When this setting is switched ON:

• Teachers who have been marked as Supervisor of a Grade, Group, Subject or Location gain the option to switch into a Supervisor view inside supported portal forms.
• In that view, they can see, and in some forms edit, the academic data (grades, absences, homework, and similar records) of Students belonging to the Grade, Group, Subject or Location they supervise, even if they are not that Student’s regular Teacher.

When this setting is switched OFF:

• No Supervisor view is available anywhere in the Teacher portal.
• Every Teacher only ever sees data for the Students, Groups and Subjects they are personally and directly assigned to teach.
• The Supervisor Mode option disappears from every form, even if a Teacher was previously configured as a Supervisor somewhere in the system.

This setting is the master on/off switch for the whole Supervisor feature. Turning it on does not, by itself, decide which forms show the Supervisor option, or whether the access granted is view-only or also editable – those details are controlled by two companion settings described under Notes below.

Where It Is Used

This setting only affects the Teacher (Instructor) portal. It has no effect on the Administrator, Secretary/back-office, Student or Parent portals, because those user types already have broader access to student records regardless of Supervisor status.

Depending on which forms an administrator has chosen to enable (see the related settings under Notes), the Supervisor Mode option can appear in the following areas of the Teacher portal:

• Term Grades (marking)
• Absences and Absences History
• Descriptive Marking
• Assessment Marking
• My Sections / My Groups
• My Students
• Homework
• Sessions

When a Supervisor Teacher opens one of these forms (and that form has been enabled for Supervisor Mode), an ‘Enable Supervisor Mode’ option becomes available. Switching it on lets the Teacher browse, and where permitted edit, the data for the whole Grade, Group, Subject or Location they supervise, instead of only their own Groups or Subjects.

Business Logic / Behavior

• Supervisor status must be assigned first. Before this setting has any visible effect, at least one Teacher must be set as the Supervisor (or Second Supervisor) on a Grade, Group, Subject or Location record. This assignment is made directly on that record’s own configuration screen, not on this setting.
• Scope is limited to what is supervised. A Supervisor only gains extended access to the specific Grade, Group, Subject or Location(s) they have been assigned to supervise, not to the whole institution.
• Two companion settings fine-tune the effect. One decides in which portal forms the Supervisor option appears at all; a second decides, among those forms, in which ones the Supervisor may also edit data rather than only view it. If a form is not selected in either list, the Supervisor Mode option will not appear there, even with this master setting enabled.
• Administrators and Secretary/back-office users are not affected. Because these roles already have full access to student data, the Supervisor Mode option is only relevant to, and only ever shown to, Teacher-type users.
• A Second Supervisor has the same access as the primary Supervisor. Some entities allow assigning a second Teacher as an additional Supervisor with identical rights.
• An Administrative Supervisor is different. Some entities also offer an Administrative Supervisor field intended for a non-teaching, back-office staff member. This field is for informational and administrative reference only, and it does not grant that person any extra data access through this setting.
• This is not the same as Assessment Workflow reviewers. Some Subjects/Courses can additionally have a Second Supervisor (Content Verifier) and Third Supervisor (Mark Verifier) role, used to review assessment content and marks before they are published to Students. Those roles depend on a separate setting, Enable Assessments Workflow, and operate independently of this setting.

Example(s)

Example 1 – K-12 Mode

Riverside Elementary School has Enable Supervisors Mode switched on. Ms. Grace Bennett, a Teacher, has been set as the Supervisor of Group ‘5B’, even though she personally teaches only Mathematics to that class. Because ‘Term Grades’ and ‘Absences’ have been selected in the list of forms where Supervisor Mode applies, Grace can open the Term Grades form, switch on ‘Enable Supervisor Mode’, and review the grades entered by all of 5B’s other Teachers (English, Science, Art, and so on) for every Student in the class. Because ‘Term Grades’ was also selected in the edit-rights list, Grace can correct an entry directly; if it had not been selected, she would only be able to view the entry and would need to ask the original Teacher to make the change.

Example 2 – Higher Education Mode

Lakeside University has ‘Enable Configuration for Higher Education’ active, so the same feature is displayed using Higher Education terms: Grade appears as ‘Program’, Group as ‘Section’, Subject as ‘Course’ and Location as ‘College’. Dr. Henry Walsh is set as the Supervisor of the ‘Business Administration’ Program. With Enable Supervisors Mode active, and ‘My Students’ and ‘Descriptive Marking’ selected as visible forms, Henry can switch on Supervisor Mode in ‘My Students’ to see the full list of Students enrolled in the Business Administration Program, taught across multiple Courses and Sections by different Instructors, not only the Course he personally teaches.

When to Use

When to Enable

• The institution has coordinators, form tutors, or Program/Subject leaders who are expected to monitor or occasionally correct academic records (grades, attendance, homework, and similar data) beyond the classes they personally teach.
• There is a need for a lightweight, targeted way to broaden a specific Teacher’s visibility to a Grade, Group, Subject or Location, without granting that Teacher full Administrator or Secretary rights.
• The institution wants any oversight role to remain scoped strictly to the Grade, Group, Subject or Location it is responsible for, rather than having institution-wide access.

When to Disable

• Teachers at the institution should only ever see data for the Students, Groups and Subjects they personally teach, with no exceptions.
• No coordination or oversight role exists yet, or the institution prefers that any broader oversight be handled exclusively through Administrator or Secretary/back-office accounts.
• The institution is still in the initial setup phase and has not yet decided which Teachers should be Supervisors and which forms or access levels should be enabled. Keeping this setting off until that configuration is complete avoids accidentally exposing Student data.

Notes

This is the master switch for the Supervisor feature. It works together with the following related settings:

• Enable supervisors mode in the following Instructors’ portal forms (Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization > Supervisors Configuration) – chooses in which portal forms (Term Grades, Absences, Absences History, Descriptive Marking, Assessment Marking, My Sections, My Students, Homework, Sessions) the Supervisor option is available at all.
• Supervisor Mode: Select forms where supervisors have an edit right (Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization > Supervisors Configuration) – out of the forms above, chooses which ones allow the Supervisor to edit data rather than only view it.
• Enable Configuration for Higher Education (Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization) – does not change whether this feature works, only the terminology used to describe it (for example, Grade is shown as ‘Program’ and Location as ‘College’).
• Set which user type can edit the title of a Subject (Main Settings > General Settings > Teachers Portal Rights > Basic Settings) – treats ‘Supervisor’ as an intermediate access level, between regular Employees and regular Teachers, for that specific field.
• Allow Teachers to add period Class comments (Main Settings > General Settings > Teachers Portal Rights > Basic Settings) – a separate, narrower permission that lets a Teacher who is not a Supervisor still add progress comments to a Group/Class they do not supervise.
• Enable Assessments Workflow (Academic Settings > Marking Settings > General Settings > Assessments and Assignments > Assessment Workflow) – a related but independent feature that adds extra reviewer roles (Second Supervisor – Content Verifier, and Third Supervisor – Mark Verifier) to Subjects/Courses, used to approve assessment content and marks before publication.

Pre-requisites before enabling this setting:

• Decide which Teachers should act as Supervisors, and assign them as Supervisor (or Second Supervisor) on the relevant Grade, Group, Subject or Location record.
• Review and configure the two companion settings mentioned above, so the Supervisor option appears only in the intended forms and with the correct level of access (view-only or editable).