13. Access rights

Access rights help to protect the IT system and the data stored on the system by restricting who can do what.

Most company networks will be set up so that different users have appropriate levels of access rights.

Think about your school. There are students, teachers and the network staff.

Students

As a student, you can log on, access your own files and change them, use most of the software on the system and probably access a shared area where you can open files put there by your teacher and then save them to your area.

What you can't do is load software onto the system, access files from other students' areas, delete or change files in the shared area. You also can't change the system settings or add/delete new users.

Teachers

Your teacher can do more than you. They might be able to access all of the students' user areas and open, copy or move files. They can put files into the shared folder for you to use.

Most teachers however, can't usually load software onto the system. They often can't access other teachers' areas. They can't change the system settings. They can't add or delete users on the system.

Network staff

Network staff are responsible for the upkeep of the network and so have may have 'admin' rights to the system. This means they can do just about everything on the system. They can install new software, change system settings, add/delete users. They can access everyone's files and folders.

This is all done through 'Access Rights'.

When the network manager originally set up the system, they would have set up different levels of access rights e.g. student, teacher, network manager. They would then have specified what permissions each access level should have i.e. what anyone with that access right can and can't do.

When they add a new user to the system, for example when a new student or member of staff starts at the school, they will be given a user ID and their access rights/level of access will be set.