Environment VariablesIntroduction
Environment Variables provide a convenient and powerful way to store & retrieve information in ANGEL. Once you store data in an environment variable it persists across user sessions and can be left static or modified by subsequent student interactions. Variables can be associated with “All Users” to provide an overall setting. You can also assign variables to individual users so they all have different values for the same variable. Values that are assigned to individuals take precedence to identically named variables set to “All Users.”
Tokens
Tokens are special environment variables that can be used to dynamically display their value when placed inside ANGEL Content Manager items. Tokens can be differentiated from ordinary environment variables because they always begin and end with dollar signs ($). See Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: When inserted into the page text, the $USER_NAME$ token
is substituted for the full name of the user currently logged in.
What’s in my environment?
There are a large number of environment variables that are made available by the ANGEL system, some of which are populated with data from the User’s Profile. Instructors can create custom variables to extend this set and configure custom behavior in their courses. ANGEL allows Course Editors to view, add, edit, and delete environment variables and their values in each Course’s Manage Tab.
Managing Environment Variables
ANGEL provides two tools for editing environment variables. The Course/Group Environment Variables Editor (see Figure 2) allows access only to those entries that apply to the current group or course. The Admin Environment Variable Editor allows access to all variables, at all variable levels, for any and all courses and users, but is only available to system administrators.
