creating relationships between course creators, teachers and students

creating relationships between course creators, teachers and students

by Greg Lyon -
Number of replies: 4
I'd like to customize my moodle installation (1.7) such that teachers are assigned to course creators, and that students have a 'main' teacher.  My initial thought is to set up a table (or use the new mdl_user_info* tables) and add a 'parent' (hate to use parent as the name since parent can mean the parent of a student) or 'supervisor' id that would link any user to another user.  Then I'll want to make pages similar to the /admin/user.php that displays a list of users related to a given course creator/instructor.  I suppose I'd also want to hack $CFG-> so the id is always available.  When I'm done there would exist a 1-many relationship between CC and Instructors, and a 1-many relationship between Instructor and Students.

Before I get started with this hack, some questions: 
  1. is there someting in Moodle that already maps this sort of relationship? 
  2. Have any of you embarked upon similar customizations?
  3. Would anybody be interested in such a thing assuming I can make it portable?
  4. Is it even possible to make it portable?  Right now I believe it will take my moodle too far off path from the source...it'd be great if I could do it as some sort of module instead.
I do realize that this concept goes somewhat against the grain of Moodle, but that's what I have to do.

Thanks for your thoughts!

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In reply to Greg Lyon

Re: creating relationships between course creators, teachers and students

by N Hansen -
Wouldn't groups do that?
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In reply to N Hansen

Re: creating relationships between course creators, teachers and students

by Greg Lyon -
Well, I don't know if groups would do it.  I've also wondered if I could somehow do it with some sort of meta-course or category.  I fear I don't understand all of the uses of any of these enough. 

What would I do, set up a course as each course creator and make each teacher a member of the correct creator's course?  Wait, that doesn't use any groups at all.  So do I make all users a member of a course and then divide the course into groups?  See, I don't understand it...

Incidentally, I've been wanting to start a thread on each (categories, meta-courses, groups), with the ultimate goal being new moodledocs on them, or enhancements where there's already info I haven't found.  I figure that I can't be the only person who needs help to understand them mixed, right?
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In reply to Greg Lyon

Re: creating relationships between course creators, teachers and students

by Ryan Thomas -
I love this idea...for a variety of reasons. Some re logistics of administration, and others re the ability to add value of relationship-centered service.

I don't see how it goes against the grain of moodle.
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In reply to Ryan Thomas

Re: creating relationships between course creators, teachers and students

by Greg Lyon -
Thanks Ryan,
I appreciate the vote! Yeah, it makes sense to me, and even if it didn't it is a requirement of my moodle customization project...
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