Site Wide Groups

Site Wide Groups

by Ian Watts -
Number of replies: 24

Hi

This question may have been answered hundreds of times, but I cannot find an answer anywhere.

I teach in a British School, where a group of pupils will follow six or seven units (courses) in a year. The group of pupils will not change over the year. There are seven of these groups. Like This:

Groups7.17.27.37.47.57.6
7A1xxxxxx
7A2xxxxxx
7A3xxxxxx
7A4xxxxxx
7B1xxxxxx
7B2xxxxxx
7B3xxxxxx

I currently have the pupils enrolling onto the courses one at a time, but I wish to use groups to seperate the seven groups into their own. This way, when I want to mark a classes work, I can.

However, i seem to have to define groups at every course level, without being able to reuse groups from another course.

There has to be a better way to administer groups than this. ie. is there a way to administer groups at the site level, and have this cascade down to individual courses, or do we have to repeat this process every time the pupils start a new course.

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In reply to Ian Watts

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Timothy Takemoto -

I don't know how to reuse groups. I don't think that there are reusable site level groups.

But PERHAPS metacourse groups may filter down into the courses enrolled on them. Please search for metacourse groups....I found

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=41897

But anyway, you could also use enrolment keys to allow students to enrol into their groups automatically. If you create the groups first complete with enrollment keys and then backup and restore the prototype seven times, then the group settings will be shared by all your courses and the students will only have to enter their group name as they start each course.

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In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Ian Watts -

Thanks for that - i had sort of found meta courses, but didn't really understand them. I will have another look.

I hadn't thought of the other way - 7 instances of the same course - 1 for each group - I will have a play with that.

Thanks for the reply

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In reply to Ian Watts

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Rick Barnes -

The easiest way I have found is to create a course and add an enrolement key (you wont need to remember thiS one) Then set up your groups and if you go into the group properties you can give each one their own enrolement key. When the enrol to the course using this key they are automatically assigned to the correct group. You could then use the same keys for every course.

Course key                            not used

Group 7.1 a                            enrolement key a
Group 7.1 b                            enrolement key b
Group 7.1 c                            enrolement key c

If you make copies of the course and need to update it you have to change all of the copies.

Hope this helps

Rick.

Attachment group_key.jpg
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In reply to Rick Barnes

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Ian Watts -

Hi

Thanks for this - exactly what I was looking for, and it works a treat.

It saves going through the task each time of putting pupils into groups.

Thansk again

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In reply to Rick Barnes

Re: Site Wide Groups

by AJ Jahan -

Rick,
I am new to Moodle and I've been trying to solve my site-wide-group problem as well. I have Moodle 1.8.1 installed and I cann't find this screen. Is this screen specific to a certain version, or it is the same as ver 1.8.1 please? 

Thank you in advance,
AJ

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In reply to AJ Jahan

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Chris Collman -
Picture of Documentation writers
Hi AJ,
This is a subject that interests me as well. Did you remember to turn on groups in your course settings in the Course Administration Block? The groups icon will then appear and then you should see something similar to the screen shots . I am trying to work this out in 1.8.2 and saw your post.

I am still working on it. Best Chris
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In reply to Rick Barnes

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Camilo Rivera -

What about when you need to unenroll a user froma all of the groups?  have to go one by one? is it possible to do it in bulk but not deleting the user?

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In reply to Ian Watts

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Darren Smith -
We do the same thing at KS3 and have found a workable solution.

Firstly we create a a master enrollment course. So we have one for intake2005, intake2004, intake2003 at key stage 3 and all of the students are enrolled in their. We put them into groups in those master enrollment courses.

Now the 7.1, 7.2 and so on courses are all metacourses (just tick the box in the course settings) and get their enrollments from the intake courses (click students in the course admin block)

The problem is groups are not transfered with the enrolments so we got a bit of code written to fix that smile (attached)

Next year all we will have to do is point 8,1. 8.2 and so on at intake2005 (as they will be in year 8 then obviously) and all of the kids and groups will automatically appear.cool

HTH

Darren
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In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Ian Watts -

Thanks for this - I have actually gone with the soluton above, as it is easier to mix in with my current setup. However, I will look at this, as it looks better to track progress across year groups maybe.

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In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Site Wide Groups

by phil walley -

Hi Darren,

This looks like a great hack. It's exactly what I was looking for. I do have a couple of questions though for anyone who has used MetaCourseGroupsHack.zip

1. Have there been any issues with Moodle upgrades? (I use Moodle 1.8.2+)

2. Is it still possible to add people to extra groups (or remove them) from individual course. ie Harry and John enrol in the metacourse. Harry joins group A, John joins groups A and B. The enrolment and groups then cascade down into all other course. But then I decide to remove Harry from group A for course 1, and I want to add John to an extra group, group C for course 2.

Has anyone done something similar?

Thanks

Phil

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In reply to Ian Watts

Re: Site Wide Groups

by richard beaumont -

I seems to me that the best solution is for groups (and groupings) of people completely independent of courses.

That way you could set up groups, add users, group administrators, teachers etc, to those groups without there being any courses.

When you create a course, you can associate it with a groups, or grouping, and all members get enrolled on that course. Or can see the courses available to them as members of the group - and choose to enroll.

This should also work for categories - associate, or assign a category to a group - and all courses in that category are available to members of that group.

This would give the greatest level of flexibility.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to richard beaumont

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Owen Barnes -
Well said, Richard! smile You described exactly what my team needs/wants to do with groups & categories.

Does anyone know a way to do this? We're playing with it but have not found a satisfactory solution yet... mixed
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In reply to Owen Barnes

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Derek McMillan -
Sorry Owen, all I have is a "me too". I would love to be able to solve this problem as it is a bit of a fag to re-group pupils every half term.
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In reply to Owen Barnes

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Carl Hodkinson -
Sounds to me that there are a number of people with the same wishes as us!
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In reply to Carl Hodkinson

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Farrukh Ikram -
Please add another in the list, as i had also been wandering for the SAME solution for quite a long time now.angry
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In reply to Farrukh Ikram

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Matt Gibson -
Vote here to get it fixed.
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Matt Gibson

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Tony Spedaliere -

Hi Matt,

   Thanks for posting the link!   Hopefully we can get enough votes to have this feature add quickly to Moodle!

Thanks,
  Tony

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In reply to Tony Spedaliere

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Séverin Terrier -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Yes, voted smile

That would really be a very useful feature, wanted by a lot of people !

Séverin
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In reply to Owen Barnes

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Tony Spedaliere -
Hey Everybody,
Is there a work-around that people might be using to achieve this until it's been integrated into Moodle.

Any information would be great!

Thanks,
Tony
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In reply to richard beaumont

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Tony Spedaliere -
Hey guys.. I'm also looking for the same thing.. has their been any advancement on this??
Thanks,
Tony
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In reply to richard beaumont

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Elaine Batiste -
I want to vote for this too, our KS3 groups are used across all subjects and it would be great if they could be set up once rather than having all teachers wasting time duplicating.

It looks like we should be using meta courses but I don't want to have to replace all of my existing courses as you can't change them once they have normal enrolments.

Any interim solutions would also be welcome

Thanks

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In reply to Elaine Batiste

Re: Site Wide Groups

by Paula Burke -

It has been a few years since the topic of site wide groups was discussed... did it ever get added in to Moodle? I am on 1.9 and really need this feature.  Thanks!

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