Roles and approvals in Akari

Course Owner

• The member of staff who created the proposal or someone else who has subsequently been assigned Course Owner.
• There can only be one active Course Owner per course.
• They can be a professional services or academic member of staff.
• For editing rights, see Course workflows and approvals.

Course Convenor or Co-Convenor

• A course can have a Course Convenor plus multiple Co-Convenors.
• Course Convenor and Co-Convenor names are published in the Course Guide.
• They have the same rights and access as the Course Owner.
• A Course Convenor or Co-Convenor must be a faculty member, not GTAs or Guest Teachers.
• When adding a Course Convenor or Co-Convenor in Akari as part of the Annual Course Guide Review, you can list the “start date” as the date on which you’re adding them. 
• Any Course Convenor or Co-Convenor who will not be linked to a course in the upcoming academic year should be deleted as part of the Annual Course Guide Review. There is guidance on how to do this in Akari itself, on the “Roles” tab. 
• For editing rights, see Course workflows and approvals.

Editors or Collaborators

• A course can have multiple Editors and Collaborators.
• Editor and Collaborator names are not published in the Course Guide. 
• For editing rights, see Course workflows and approvals.

For all roles, users will see the fields they cannot edit as read-only.

No further approval needed:

• Minor changes to a course
• Suspension of a course
• Withdrawal of a course

Departmental Approval (optional), plus TQARO approval (required):

• Major changes to a course

It’s important to note that for major changes to a course, Akari will allow users to submit changes directly to Approved, which bypasses Departmental Approval. Those making edits will need to be clear about which to select when submitting their changes.

Department Approval (required), plus TQARO approval (required):

• New course proposal

Programme Owner

• The member of staff who created the proposal or someone else who has subsequently been assigned Programme Owner. 
• There can only be one active Programme Owner per programme.
• They can be a professional services or academic member of staff.
•  For editing rights, see Programme workflows and approvals.

Programme Director

• The academic staff member with overall responsibility for the programme.
• There can only be one active Programme Director per programme.
• They must be an academic member of staff.
• For editing rights, see Programme workflows and approvals.

Editors or Collaborators

• A programme can have multiple Editors and Collaborators.
• They can be professional services or academic members of staff, from within or outside the home department.
• For editing rights, see Programme workflows and approvals.

Departmental Approval (optional), plus TQARO approval (required):

• Minor changes to a programme
• Major changes to a programme

It’s important to note that for changes to a programme, Akari will allow users to submit changes directly to TQARO, which bypasses Departmental Approval. Those making edits will need to be clear about which to select when submitting their changes.

TQARO Approval (required):

• Suspension of a programme
• Withdrawal of a programme

Department Approval (required), plus TQARO approval (required):

• New programme proposal

Departmental Approver is a role in Akari. Each department must have at least one Departmental Approver. For workflows where this role is optional, how you use it is down to each department's own way of working.

• They can be a professional services or academic member of staff.
• They can already hold a different role (e.g. Course Owner, Programme Owner, Course Convenor, Editor or Collaborator) as well as the Departmental Approval role.
• They must be added or deleted by TQARO. To add or change a Departmental Approver, please contact tqaro@lse.ac.uk.
• This role sits across most workflows in Akari. 
• It is possible to have more than one Departmental Approver; however, when a course/programme reaches the Departmental Approval stage, email notifications go out to all approvers. There is currently no way to alert others when a course/programme has been reviewed and moved onto another stage, so departments with multiple approvers should consider how to avoid duplication of work. 
• The stage "Submit for departmental approval" is compulsory for new course and programme proposals. However, it is optional for changes to courses and programmes, meaning it can always be bypassed. If a department has an internal approvals process in place, they should be clear with those using Akari when they must submit for Departmental Approval. 
• For departments which do not have internal approvals processes in place (or the approver is the same person that completes the work in Akari), they can bypass Departmental Approval for changes to courses and programmes by selecting “Submit for TQARO review”.