The following terms and concepts help provide a foundation for understanding and using Onshape EDU Enterprise.

Enterprise

The enterprise is an Onshape instance that has its own unique URL, specific to the institution or school. Users access their Onshape account through this specific URL. One user is the Administrator of the enterprise (usually the person who sets up the enterprise for use), and has all possible permissions within the enterprise.

Administrator

The Administrator is the Onshape user who is setting up the enterprise for use. This user has all the permissions possible and can add and remove users. More than one user can be an administrator of the enterprise. This person is usually a school IT representative, department head, or the educator in charge of the enterprise.

The person who creates the Enterprise account, by default becomes the Administrator of the account. The Administrator creates Educators and potentially Students as well. Educators can also create Students.

Educator

An Educator is an Onshape user who is responsible for educating a class of students. Educators in Onshape have permissions to add classes, publish and close assignments, and add and remove Students.

Educators are created by the enterprise Administrator, or another Educator. By default, Educators have all the permissions necessary to create student users, classes, and assignments. Educators can add and remove students to/from classes, and publish and close assignments.

Student

A student is an Onshape user who is a member of at least one class within the enterprise. Students can create and delete their own documents, and access classes to which they belong and the assignments therein, and also submit their work.

Students can see only their own work in Onshape and never have access to another Student's work.

Class

A class is an Onshape object that groups students together and contains assignments created by the Educator.

Educators see the assignments they have added to a class, the status of the assignment and how many students have submitted work for each assignment. Educators can also see the members of the class (students), and access analytics for each class and assignment.

An enterprise may have more than one class; a class will have a collection of students and assignments.

Assignment

An assignment is a particular unit of work assigned to students in a class. Assignments can consist of instructions for the student and a linked copy of a document for the student to use in conjunction with their assignment. Instructions may also specify that the student begin with a new document they create, or that the student can choose what to submit.

Educators can create assignments whenever they want and keep them unpublished.

Assignments can consist of documents and other files containing information and data such as instructions, examples, a starting model, and a drawing. Educators create assignments, publish them for student access, and close them in order to evaluate student work. Each student submits their version of the assignment (called a submission), showcasing their own work. No student can see another student's work. An assignment is published for a specific time window, then closed, so the educator can evaluate students' work.

Submissions

The work of a particular student for a particular assignment. A submission takes the form of an Onshape document, which may contain many forms of work by the student. Students submit their work for evaluation.

After submission, students' access to their work is suspended while the Educator reviews it. Educators access a list of submitted work in the Class dashboard.

Publish and close

When an educator is ready to distribute an assignment to a class, they publish that assignment.

When the deadline arrives for students to have submitted work, the Educator can close the assignment, preventing students from further submissions.

Permissions

Normally, the default permissions granted upon creation of all users in an EDU enterprise suffice and no additional permission granting or tweaking is necessary.

For special cases where the defaults are not sufficient, Onshape has global permissions control user access to enterprise-level operations and information. Only the enterprise administrator (or another user with administrator rights) can grant Global permissions to other users. Global permissions are intended for administrative users, some educators, but never students.

To refine the default permissions for educators and students, you can use Permissions schemes in tandem with Project roles.