Hi,
I just open this discussion about global (or context) groups in Moodle 2.0, because it seems there have been not discussions about it here.
It's a really awaited feature, asked from a long time, and with a lot of votes (and some discussions) in MDL-11826. You can also find discussions about it at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=43755
I know that Petr Skoda said it should be in 2.0, but it's not on the roadmap yet. Is it intentional ? or MartinD just forgot to put it there ? Does it mean that no discussion is necessary for this ?
This feature would really ease management for a lot of institutions :-)
I also think that better than having global groups, it would be more powerful to have context groups, that could be defined at system or (sub) category context.
Séverin
Hi everybody !
It is not congruent with Moodle brilliant roles and capacity features, that group architecture is beeing confined to courses . I call hands and feet to vote for that urgent update.
It is not congruent with Moodle brilliant roles and capacity features, that group architecture is beeing confined to courses . I call hands and feet to vote for that urgent update.
This would form the starting point for many authentication and enrolment plugins to be able to generate and enrol groups respectively. Very important and a huge time-saver. I think the most frequent question I get is 'how can I add a whole class to my course at once?'
Hi Séverin,
A revamp of the groups system would certainly help me in my organision. In workbased learning as I am, the big thing is stakeholder invovement (i.e. employers, schools parents etc) being able to see the work of their sponsered learner, child etc.
It would require a system where you could have groups within groups. For example, an emplyer might have 3 learners in our centre, two of them in a group of electricians and 1 in a group of plumbers. But they all need to be in a global group that is attached to that employer.
This may already be possible in my current 1.9.1 setup as I have not tried that hard to see but I am sure that any rework of the groups facility woukld be a welcome additions to what is a fine product.
regards
Mike
P.S. i am not a developer althogh I would like to have the time to be, however I would be hapy to help with testing.
I just added this to the development roadmap 
The internal groups implementation at the course level is not going to change (both db tables and API). The groups will not be really "global", there should be some synchronisation mechanism instead.
This is closely related to enrolment, participation, guest access and metacourses - I am not sure what it will look like in the end. A lot of people are now working on file&repository related design+code, I hope this will be the next major task on the road towards 2.0 (end of summer?).
Thanks for your patience
Petr
The internal groups implementation at the course level is not going to change (both db tables and API). The groups will not be really "global", there should be some synchronisation mechanism instead.
This is closely related to enrolment, participation, guest access and metacourses - I am not sure what it will look like in the end. A lot of people are now working on file&repository related design+code, I hope this will be the next major task on the road towards 2.0 (end of summer?).
Thanks for your patience
Petr
Thanks Petr for the quick answer, roadmap modification, and explanations
I understand it wouldn't be easy to change the whole group/grouping things, and synchronisation mechanism should answer most problems...
No problem to wait, i was just worried about still not having it in Moodle 2.0.
Séverin
I understand it wouldn't be easy to change the whole group/grouping things, and synchronisation mechanism should answer most problems...
No problem to wait, i was just worried about still not having it in Moodle 2.0.
Séverin
I'm really interested in helping out with this, unfortunately i've not had the time yet. 
If there are any bugs for this, please add me as a watcher!
If there are any bugs for this, please add me as a watcher!
Yep just forgot to add it to the roadmap on the wiki. 
Global groups is hands down the most important missing feature in Moodle. We have endless discussions with teachers about why they have to set up the same class over and over.
Please please please make this one a priority !
Please please please make this one a priority
Site wide groups in moodle
As this is a most wanted feature, we developed a integration strategy, in order to fit it to the needs of most teachers and users of moodle. So interested about your feedback and if it is possible to integrate this function as described below.
Aim:
as user friendly as possible and as easy as possible to integrate to actual system
Principal functions of site wide groups.
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every user can be part of several different groups
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no groups in groups allowed (at this point, could be changed in later versions)
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a group should be treated like a single user: enrol groups or users in courses, change roles for a group, etc.
- course groups remain unchanged (see chapter "How to combine course groups with site wide groups")
How to manage site wide groups?
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In the user admin section there should be a container called „groups“
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In the user admin section you can create site wide groups
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In the group properties the admin can define how to subscribe to a site wide group. To choose frome following options:
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Subscribe with a key: When registering, or later on in the user profile you can enter a key and then subscribe to a group by entering the key defined in this section.
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Subscription only by site admins: Only site admins can add user to this specific group
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Allow some users to change this group: (select user from list or an existing group)
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Open group: Everyone can choose to be in that group or not
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there should be a default group, all users are subscribed to if no site wide groups are created
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when user is registering on the site, in site admin there should be a Option „Register only with key“.
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In bulk user action: you should be able to delete groups
How to combine site wide groups with course groups?
In the course preferences there should be two options to choose:
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Use site wide groups also as course groups (when groupe mode is on)
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Define separate course groups (for example two site wide groups are enrolled into the course, but a need to have smaller course groups, so I can define my own course groups)
Roles and site wide groups?
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As users you should be able to define roles for groups for several levels:
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site wide
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course categories
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activities (depending whicht option under „How to combine site wide groups with course groups?) is chosen.
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Further comments
I know groups are used for many different things and in a very logic way in computer systems (ex. Groups in linux system). But I saw this system used for a e-learning system (fronter) and this was pure admin nightmare: So forget this system it might be logic, but it is not user friendly
Feedback from programmers point of view would be greatly appreciated.
Yours,
David
David, I don`t know if this is going to be useful for you but:
1. If you define, for instance, separate groups in your course, it would be very interesting that activities (tasks,...) even resources could be assigned to each group in an independent way, that is, you can define a set of resources and activities "group independent" (to be seen and work out for each member of a particular group and not for the others).
2. In the same way, you shoud grade each activity por each group.
Thanks,
Santiago.
Hi,
This is a little off the target of site-wide groups but certainly relates to how groups are used in course settings.
If there is going to be a sizeable amount of coding to enable site-wide groups, would it be possible to allow activities to hidden or shown group by group?
This functionality would allow teachers to use one course and then differentiate the resources based on classes or groups within those classes, without students having to see all the activities that are not relevant to them.
I am not sure if this would come under the site-wide groups or if it would involve changing the functionality of the existing groups...
Jon
This is a little off the target of site-wide groups but certainly relates to how groups are used in course settings.
If there is going to be a sizeable amount of coding to enable site-wide groups, would it be possible to allow activities to hidden or shown group by group?
This functionality would allow teachers to use one course and then differentiate the resources based on classes or groups within those classes, without students having to see all the activities that are not relevant to them.
I am not sure if this would come under the site-wide groups or if it would involve changing the functionality of the existing groups...
Jon
OK, so this was a case of RTFM! I have just been reading up on groups and groupings on the docs site, and found that I can allow activities to be available to only one grouping... 
Yes, however work on groupings site wide could be most useful too. I'm thinking about this to hide categories and courses to simplify the presentation of the site in, say, a school or to ensure total separation of client son the same site.
If you have some thoughts on use cases for site wide groups and groupings feel free to add them to the docs page where Site wide groups are being considered.
If you have some thoughts on use cases for site wide groups and groupings feel free to add them to the docs page where Site wide groups are being considered.
Hi everyone,
As Martin mentioned in MDL-11826, help with fleshing out the site-wide groups specification would be much appreciated. Please see Development:Site-wide groups.
As Martin mentioned in MDL-11826, help with fleshing out the site-wide groups specification would be much appreciated. Please see Development:Site-wide groups.