Understanding the Active Learning Project - View permission for reviewers

Gatekeeping with a Purpose: Understanding Active Learning Project Permissions

If you’re mapping out how teams review large sets of documents, you’ve probably run into a few gatekeepers along the way. In Relativity, one of the quiet but mighty gatekeepers is the Active Learning project permission. It’s not about every file or every tool; it’s about who gets to see how a project is moving, what decisions are being made, and where the project sits in the overall review process. Here’s the thing: when someone is tasked with overseeing an Active Learning project, they don’t need to tinker with the project settings or the documents themselves. They need to observe, validate, and guide—without altering the core materials. That’s where the right permission comes in.

What makes Active Learning different from ordinary reviews?

Let’s start with the basics. Active Learning is a smart approach to sorting and prioritizing documents during a review. Instead of wading through thousands of files in a random order, reviewers use machine-assisted prioritization to focus on the most informative items first. It’s a bit like having a seasoned editor who can spotlight the chapters that will shape the story, while you still retain control over what gets published. Because this mode of work involves ongoing decisions about which documents to prioritize and how the model should learn from reviewer input, access needs to be carefully scoped.

That means there’s a dedicated set of permissions that governs not just what you can see, but what you can influence. You don’t want someone to alter the project’s configuration or to change items within the Active Learning queue unless they’re explicitly authorized. The balance between visibility and control is what makes the right permission so crucial.

The one permission that truly matters

To access an Active Learning project, a reviewer needs: Active Learning Project - View. This permission is designed specifically to let you view the contents and the status of the Active Learning project. It gives you a window into how the project is performing, what has been reviewed, what the model is suggesting next, and where decisions are signaling a pause or a shift in approach.

What this permission does not do is grant editing powers over the project itself or the documents being reviewed. In other words, View is about insight and oversight, not control. You can see the project’s health, the workflow, and the reviewer decisions that feed the model, but you won’t be able to tweak settings or modify the underlying data unless you’re given a higher level of access.

A quick compare-and-contrast to clear the fog

You might wonder how this stacks up against other permissions. Here’s a straightforward look:

• Active Learning Project - View (the one that matters for reviewers): Lets you see the project layout, status, and the items in the Active Learning queue. It’s about situational awareness—what’s happening and why—without changing anything.

• Active Learning Review - View, Edit: This one adds the ability to review and adjust tasks within the Active Learning workflow. It’s more hands-on and touches the review decisions and perhaps how the model learns from feedback.

• Document - View, Edit: This is more about the files themselves. You can see and change individual documents, but you don’t automatically see the project-wide status or the learning queue.

• Analytics Index - View: This is about the data and metrics, not the project’s day-to-day operations. It’s useful for high-level insights rather than direct project oversight.

The key takeaway is precision. Active Learning Project - View is the narrow, appropriate lens for someone who needs to monitor but not mutate. Other permissions exist for roles that require direct editing or deeper data manipulation, but they’re not a substitute for the dedicated project-view permission when the job is to supervise a learning-enabled workflow.

How this plays out in real life

Let me explain with a simple scenario. Imagine you’re coordinating a review of a large litigation dataset. Your team uses an Active Learning strategy to rank documents by relevance as reviewers label items. You have a reviewer who needs to understand where the project stands: what’s been labeled, what the model is prioritizing, and whether the process is following the defined workflow. You grant them Active Learning Project - View. Now they can:

• See the current stage of the Active Learning cycle.

• Check which documents have been prioritized by the model and which have just been reviewed.

• Confirm that the review pace and quality checks align with your team’s standards.

• Watch for any flags or notes that signal a need for a process adjustment.

At no point does this person need to click into the project’s settings, alter the learning parameters, or modify document content. If they did, you’d be stepping into a different permission set—one that’s reserved for editors or project administrators. That separation keeps the process stable and reduces the risk of accidental changes that ripple through the entire workflow.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

As with many permissions puzzles, the trap is thinking “a bit more access can’t hurt.” In reality, extra access can create confusion or risk:

• Assuming viewing the project is the same as viewing all documents: You might grant someone Active Learning Project - View without realizing they still can’t see every document in the dataset or every doc-level change. It’s not a blanket pass; it’s scoped to the project’s view.

• Equating analytics with project oversight: Analytics data is valuable, but it doesn’t replace the need to observe the Active Learning project itself. Keep Analytics Index access separate from Active Learning Project access to avoid mixed signals.

• Letting editors slip into project-level governance: If someone has Edit rights on the project, they can influence the learning process and the queue. Reserve this for roles that truly own the workflow, not for general reviewers.

Practical tips for teams

• Define roles clearly: Create distinct roles for project oversight (view only) and for hands-on review (view, edit) so everyone knows exactly what they can do.

• Use groups or roles in Relativity: Group-based permissions make it easier to onboard new reviewers and maintain consistency across cases.

• Audit and document access: Regularly review who has Active Learning Project - View. If someone no longer needs that visibility, adjust their access promptly.

• Pair access with training: Even though viewing is non-destructive, it’s still powerful. A quick refresher on what the Active Learning dashboard shows can prevent misinterpretations and unnecessary escalations.

• Lean on the project’s feedback loops: Use the visibility to catch misconfigurations early—like a learning cycle that’s stalled or a workflow step that’s out of sync.

A few practical considerations you’ll appreciate

• It’s not just about permissions; it’s about responsibility. View access invites accountability, since the reviewer can interpret progress, verify results, and flag concerns without altering the pipeline.

• The right balance keeps the process nimble. When people who should observe can do so easily, teams move faster with better transparency.

• Real-world workflows don’t live in isolation. Permission decisions tie into broader governance—how teams share findings, how decisions are recorded, and how the final outputs are validated.

Wrapping it up with clarity and calm

So, what’s the bottom line? For anyone who needs to monitor an Active Learning project without changing its course, the key permission is Active Learning Project - View. It’s the precise tool for visibility, the kind of access that makes a review process trustworthy and well-governed. Other permissions exist for those who need to interact with documents, analytics, or the project’s settings, but they’re not a substitute for this focused view.

If you’re building or refining a Relativity workflow, this distinction isn’t just trivia. It’s a practical guardrail that helps teams stay aligned, avoid accidental edits, and keep the learning loop healthy. And in a field where small missteps can balloon into big delays, that kind of clarity matters more than you might think.

Final thought: In the world of Active Learning, visibility is power—but it’s power with a purpose. A reviewer who can view the project gains the context needed to ask the right questions, not the ability to rewrite the story. That thoughtful balance is what keeps complex reviews moving smoothly and ensures decisions are grounded in the actual state of the project. If you’re mapping permissions for your team, start with that single, clear view—and build from there with intention.