Can I Delete the Navigation and/or Administration Blocks?
Question
Can I delete the navigation and/or administration block? And if not, why?
Answer
The Navigation and Administration blocks cannot be deleted, nor can their access be restricted for numerous reasons.
- They are useful! System Coordinators, Supervisors, Course Creators, Instructors and even learners need access to these blocks to perform their duties. It's important to note that the content of the blocks are people and context-sensitive. This means that while you may not find the block all that useful on your home page for example, another person may require it because they will see something different in the block based on who they are or what web page they are currently on.
- They are expected by software developers. When the software development team implements new modules, they need a place where they can add menu items that are sometimes required for their modules to be fully functional. For example, the "grades" module adds links to both the Navigation block and the Administration block. If the blocks were hidden, an Instructor could not properly setup the gradebook in a course and a learner could not see their grades.
- They are referenced throughout the documentation. The step-by-step instructions in Dual Code's documentation always explains how users can navigate to a certain page based on these blocks (e.g. "Go to Site Administration > Users > Accounts > Browse list of users). This is because we know these instructions will be consistent on all systems. Because clients are able to customize the top menu, the documentation cannot generally rely on an option appearing in the top menu.
- They automatically hide themselves and/or their content. If a user has no administrative capabilities, the Administration block will automatically hide itself. If a user cannot apply for an equivalency (e.g. because no one can approve their application for example), the equivalency section in the Navigation block will automatically disappear. For that reason, there is no reason for a System Administrator to force either the Navigation block or the Administration block to be hidden.