Private Forum/API Capabilities?

[marknortham12]

Hi -

We're looking for private forum software to set up private student forums for each of the courses we will be offering online. It would need to be integrated with our php-based course delivery system. vBulletin looks like a good fit, but will likely require some customization and we're trying to get a feeling for *how much* customization vBulletin will need to address our basic requirements:

* Private forums so students in a forum cannot jump to other forums

* Ability to login directly to their course forum once they're already logged into our php course delivery system without having to enter username/pw credentials again. Expect this means ability via API to create new user accounts on the forum when a student signs up for a course, and the ability to login directly to a particular forum via API or php code from within our system so it's seamless for the user.

* Ability to designate a user as admin for a particular forum (such as an instructor) so that admin can login to the forum and administer posts as necessary - pruning, editing, etc.

* Ability for super-admin to have overall admin access to all forums - login for this user does not have to be linked to a course since the super-admin will have overall admin privileges for all private course forums

* No public signup, no public access at all (including search engines) to forums or posts

Thanks in advance for any information!

Best,

Mark Northam
Film Music Magazine