Adding SSO or removing account functionality for education purposes
I work at a school and we have been looking at moving on from Sibelius and looking for something that allows students to work on scores at home without the hassles of e-licensing and having to manage hundreds of licences.
I was just wondering if there has been any suggestions/ideas to add Google or Microsoft Single Sign On APIs to the account creation so student accounts can be managed by their school, or if an "education" version without the in-app sign in/accounts functionality have talked about?
I know the online sharing features are very useful for classroom applications but being in a school environment we have strict privacy and confidentiality policies so students can't accidentally leak any personal or peer information online.
Ideally, a centrally managed or stand-alone version of MuseScore would be great for something like that.
Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks
Comments
I know schools face many online problems. Things have to be locked down. So my question would be why is there a need to do anything with MuseScore on line at all. Or at least at a minimum. Teachers need to be able to (for example) assign a score for homework. Students work at home on their own copy of MuseScore. Then they need to be able to get their work to the teacher. Either the next day or something. Could be done with a flash drive, if it had to be.
That doesn't answer your question. Just thinking out loud.
In reply to I know schools face many… by bobjp
I think that's why adding SSO would be a great addition, rather than remove the online functionality. More so schools and institutes can control password resetting, hacks and checking who has accounts and controlling login entries etc.
In reply to I think that's why adding… by David_Marasco
Did you use SSO with Sibelius? If so, who set it up? I don't pretend to have any answers. Just trying to keep this thread active until the right person sees it.
You are on the .org forum for the software. The .com site is the online place. But there is no software available from there. It is for score sharing only. And, in my opinion, not well suited for education purposes. I assume your school has a server set up. It seems to me that would be the place to set up any SSO. Or something like it.
In reply to Did you use SSO with… by bobjp
Sibelius is on a local server and distributes local licenses as machines log on, not based on user logins. Only a handful of staff have a permeant licence distributed to them in case we run out. That's we are looking for a new solution, so students can work on projects from their own devices or at home.
From what we've tested, MuseScore looks great but the only reason we can't implement it is due to the account creation/login page that's in the app. I think creative clouds implementation of SSO is great, where you just get your login options and will redirect you if you try an SSO email address.
Especially with younger students, you have to assume not everyone knows how to create accounts, age restrictions for the accounts, password resets and what information they're giving out etc. It's also not viable to create individual accounts for every student and locally store passwords in case they forget it.
Thanks for keeping this active.
Cheers
In reply to Sibelius is on a local… by David_Marasco
You don't have to be logged into anything to download and use MuseScore. You do need an account to post on this forum and to use the score sharing site. But there is no software on that site. It can be confusing, both sites use the same header and name.
There is no paid licence necessary to use the MuseScore program for Windows, Linux, Mac. It doesn't even exist.
It is a fully free program.
A paid licence exists for the score sharing site and for reader app for mobile, but why would you need that ?
In reply to There is no paid licence… by frfancha
I completely understand, it's the account creation aspect of the software. Even though it is a free account, we can't have students creating their own accounts for management and safety reasons.
Most education software has either bulk account creations for admins, SSO capabilities or is a standalone app.
Just started this thread to see if there was any talk of potentially adding it to the software
In reply to I completely understand, it… by David_Marasco
There is no possible account to be created to use the MuseScore application, that just doesn't exist.
I'm not following you at all.
Yes on the MuseScore.com scores sharing site you can create a free account which won't offer many possibilies for you students so I don't see the point of doing that. And if this is really what you 're looking for (but why?) then, no, there is no sso nor external admin features.
In reply to I completely understand, it… by David_Marasco
Just curious : what makes you think you need an account to run MuseScore ?
In reply to I completely understand, it… by David_Marasco
MuseScore isn't education software. It is a standalone program. Help us understand why you might need SSO. And we might be able to give you direction. There are several ways to do things.
MuseScore is a standalone program (free to download from musescore.org) that you either install on school computers or your students install on their own PC or Mac. No account is required and having an account or not makes no difference to your use of the program in general.
The muescore.com website hosts accounts to allow people to upload and share scores, follow others, be followed. You could create an account and insist that your students use it appropriately and only let them download stuff from it but if you want them to upload stuff you will need to give them the password and keep an eye on what they do because having the password would allow anyone to do whatever they wanted to the scores. You have no control over your students if they want to set up their own accounts.
To my knowledge there are no plans to change this model.
It might be better talking to you IT specialist and seeing if you can set up a school server/hosting area that you could control access rights to.
In reply to MuseScore is a standalone… by underquark
I think you've misunderstood. I know the program works as a standalone but it's the in app login that education institutes (especially with people under the age of 18) need control over. Whether it's through SSO or having a version of it removed where you can only access it through the website, and all this is mainly for privacy information, security and password changes.
Regardless, we've gone with a different route but I still think it's something to consider for MuseScore moving forward
In reply to I think you've misunderstood… by David_Marasco
There non, like none, zéro, nothing, user in the MuseScore application
In reply to I think you've misunderstood… by David_Marasco
We keep trying to say that there is no account needed to download and use MuseScore. No user signin or password or anything. Nothing. It isn't difficult. And you don't need the HUB.
In reply to We keep trying to say that… by bobjp
This is what I'm referring too. I know it's not directly the app but software for education needs to be closed software or have admin control for every account used inside the app.
In reply to This is what I'm referring… by David_Marasco
I assume students are using school laptops. Once MuseScore is on the computer, Students can be restricted to an account with the app and the web site can be blocked.
As we said an account isn't needed to run the program.
In reply to I think you've misunderstood… by David_Marasco
Can I ask what route you eventually went with in case others in a similar situation are wondering?