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What user access roles are there in the Drupal content management system?

Roles in Drupal Sites

Access to Drupal sites is organized around several roles, each with a specific set of permissions to perform certain actions. Users can be assigned to one or more role for one or more site. For example, a user assigned the author role in one site may be an editor and menu manager in another site. Roles apply to entire sites rather than pages or sections of a site. Below is the role hierarchy, from least permissions to most.

Author
Users assigned to the author role create content and edit their own content. While not a common role for PSU Drupal sites, it’s the best role for users whose content needs to be reviewed prior to publication.

Editor
Editors create, edit, and publish content. They can edit content that they created or content created by other other users. Most PSU Drupal users are assigned this role in tandem with the menu manager role.

Menu manager
Users assigned to the menu manager role create and edit menu items and organize the menu hierarchy. Most PSU Drupal users are assigned this role in tandem with the editor role.

Menu administrator
Menu administrators have the same permissions as menu managers plus the ability to manage menu configuration. This role is reserved for UComm staff.

Site manager
In addition to content and menu management, site managers have access to some site configurations and can manage users. UComm plays this role for many sites, but will gladly train staff to assume this role.

Site administrator
Reserved for UComm staff, this role assumes the permissions of lower roles and includes access to broad site configurations.

Roles in Drupal Syndication

Access to the syndication site is also organized around roles that have certain permissions. Users can be assigned to more than one role, but only one site--the syndication site. There's less role heirarchy in this side of the system--just author and editor--but roles are assigned separately for each content content type (events, faqs, news, profiles). For example, a user assigned the role of event editor cannot manage faqs, news and profile content.

[content type] author
Users assigned to the author role for one of more content type can create content of that type and edit the content they created.

[content type] editor
Users assigned to the editor role for one or more content type can create content of that type and edit their own content as well as items of the same type created by other users.