Use the Roles and Permissions tool to set what functionality is available to different users. Permissions correspond to tools in Learning Environment and Desire2Learn products; for example, the ability to create discussion topics or edit an org unit’s navbar. You assign permissions to roles and then assign roles to users for specific org units. When a user accesses an org unit, they have access to the features set up for their role in that org unit.
The Roles and Permissions tool allows you to:
Click Roles and Permissions from the 
Admin Tools menu on the minibar.
Org Units Org units define the structure of an institution. By default, Learning Environment contains org unit types for course offerings, course templates, departments, semesters, and the organization. You can define custom types to match your institution’s structure, such as consortium, college, community of practice, cohort, etc.
Role A role is a mechanism for storing a set of permissions. Assigning permissions to a role dictates what users in that role are able to see and do in the system. You can create any number of roles for your institution and enroll individual users in different roles for different org units.
Cascading roles If a role is cascading, a user enrolled in any org unit in that role is automatically enrolled in all other org units beneath it. For example, if you enroll a user in the Science department in a cascading role, the user is automatically enrolled in all course templates, course offerings, and groups and sections under that department. Cascading roles are normally used for site administration.
User Enrollment You assign permissions to a user for a specific org unit by enrolling the user in that org unit in a specific role.
