OLE uses Kuali Identity Management software, which is a Kuali-wide application that handles users, roles, and permissions. KIM is part of RICE. OLE interacts with KIM to determine what permissions a user has and to define workflow responsibilities.
An important aspect of KIM is that you do not assign permissions directly to staff. Instead, permissions and responsibilities are assigned to roles. People, or groups of people, are attached to the role. A document describing OLE's use of KIM is available in draft
Impex, Bootstrap, Demo and Local Data explains the tables need to initially load people into your local system. (See also KOLE 1.5.x Installation Guide for when to load this data)
Roles and permissions are being refactored for 2.0. You can look at the refactoring that is being proposed.