User Enrollable Groups

User Enrollable Groups

by Rashan Anushka -
Number of replies: 6
Dear All,
Recently we had a requirement that the student can enroll in a group that he/she likes without the intervene of the techers. Since the current grouping system does not cater that (correct me if am wrong!) I have comeup with a small script along with some minor modifications to the existing code. I am going to publish this here hoping that this will be usefull to some others smile

Tested moodle version: 1.9.2+ (Build: 20080819)

Features
- The group settings page now has an additional setting called userenrollable to enable this feature (by default this is set to NO to make compatible with the existing groups)
- A new page call "My Groups" now shows the existing groups in the course and the membership status.
- if the users are allowed to enroll to the group (teacher can enable this by the first option), they will see a button to get enroll to that group.

Modifications
- Added a new field to the groups table (usually mdl_groups)
| userenrollable | tinyint(1) | UNSIGNED | NOT NULL | DEFAULT 0 |

- Added a new field to the group seetings page ( /group/group_form.php)
$options = array(get_string('no'), get_string('yes'));
$mform->addElement('select', 'userenrollable', get_string('userenrollable'), $options);

- Added the following code segment under existing groups link of admin block (block_admin.php)

/// My groups by Rashan
if (($course->id!==SITEID) && ($course->groupmode || !$course->groupmodeforce) && has_capability('moodle/course:groupenrollable', $context)) {
$strgroups = get_string('mygroups');
$this->content->items[]='<a title="'.$strgroups.'" href="'.$CFG->wwwroot.'/group/mygroups.php?id='.$this->instance->pageid.'">'.$strgroups.'</a>';
$this->content->icons[]='<img src="'.$CFG->pixpath.'/i/group.gif" class="icon" alt="" />';
}

- Added a new capability 'moodle/course:groupenrollable' by adding the following into <>/lib/db/access.php (under 'moodle/course:managegroups')

'moodle/course:groupenrollable' => array(

'captype' => 'write',
'contextlevel' => CONTEXT_COURSE,
'legacy' => array(
'student' => CAP_ALLOW,
'teacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
'editingteacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
'admin' => CAP_ALLOW
)
),

- Increment $version at <>/version.php and visit admin notifications to update the capabilities.

- a new file called mygroups.php saved under group folder (the file is attached)

So every one is wellcome to test this and/or make suggestions big grin.


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In reply to Rashan Anushka

Re: User Enrollable Groups

by Nicolas Dunand -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers
Hello Rashan,

Thanks for this ! I was precisely looking for something similar, as teachers began to require such a functionnality.

I just tested it on my Moodle (1.9.1+, build: 20080702), and it seems to be working well. I will be testing it further during December, and will let you know what comes out of it.

Until now, my remarks are:
  1. it's nice that the teacher still may manage groups memberships manually : that gives more flexibility;
  2. it would be even better if there would be an optional "enrolment period", within which students could unenrol from their group, and enrol into another one.
Regards,

Nicolas
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In reply to Rashan Anushka

Re: User Enrollable Groups

by Nicolas Dunand -
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Hello Rashan,

Today I took some time to add the "unenrol self" functionality :

  • MySQL : 
    ALTER TABLE `mdl_groups`
 ADD `userenrolstart` INT(11) NULL DEFAULT NULL ,
 ADD `userenrolstop` INT(11) NULL DEFAULT NULL ;
  • modify further group_form.php :
    $mform->addElement('select', 'userenrollable', get_string('userenrollable'), array(get_string('no'), get_string('yes')));
$mform->addElement('date_selector', 'userenrolstart', get_string('userenrolstartdate'));
$mform->setDefault('userenrolstart', time());
$mform->addElement('date_selector', 'userenrolstop', get_string('userenrolstopdate'));
$mform->setDefault('userenrolstop', time() + 3600 * 24 * 7);
  • modifiy mygroups.php (attached file)
Result :
  1. the teacher has to define an "user-enrolment period", during which students can enrol and unenrol ... after this period, the teacher woud have to manually make any further changes ;
  2. the students may enrol/unenrol groups during this period.

I still have to test it, though.


Regards,

Nicolas
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In reply to Nicolas Dunand

Re: User Enrollable Groups

by Nicolas Dunand -
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In a reply to myself, here's the new mygroups.php file, which corrects a bad behaviour caused by MDL-10787 : the list of group members displayed only one record per lastname if several group members had the same last name.
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In reply to Nicolas Dunand

Re: User Enrollable Groups

by Jeff Church -
This looks so good. Thanks to both of you for your work. Just starting testing on this but it looks great. Is there a lang file for this? I get mygroups and other things like it which is usually a lang file issue.

As a student or teacher I don't get the MyGroups link in the Administration block. Any ideas on what I did wrong. I do get it as Admin. I think I made a mistake in the access.php file change.

Here is what I put in access.php

'moodle/course:managegroups' => array(

'captype' => 'write',
'contextlevel' => CONTEXT_COURSE,
'legacy' => array(
'editingteacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
'admin' => CAP_ALLOW
)
),

'moodle/course:groupenrollable' => array(

'captype' => 'write',
'contextlevel' => CONTEXT_COURSE,
'legacy' => array(
'student' => CAP_ALLOW,
'teacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
'editingteacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
'admin' => CAP_ALLOW
)
),

Any help on where I went wrong would be a blessing.

Thanks
Jeff
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In reply to Jeff Church

Re: User Enrollable Groups

by Nicolas Dunand -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers
Hello Jeff,

I just wenth through all my documentation about this. To sum it up (info across several previous posts, porbably some missing), here's my working setup (this is working within Moodle 1.9) :
  1. alter Moodle database with attached mygroups_mysql.sql file
  2. modify group/group_form.php, add contents of attached group_form.php.addings file (just before "$this->add_action_buttons()"
  3. add contents of the attached block_admin.php.addings file to your blocks/admin/block_admin.php file (exact insert position depending on where you want the "My Groups" link to appear)
  4. add one capacity to your lib/db/access.php file, as coded in the attached capacity.txt file (about your post : "moodle/course:managegroups" should already exist, so things might break down if defined twice)
  5. increment your $version variable in your moodle/version.php by 1
  6. upload the attached mygroups.php file into your moodle/group/ subfolder
  7. Log into Moodle as an administrator, and visit the "Notifications page" (admin block) ; Moodle should notice the $version increment and ask you if it should upgrade ; answering Yes here triggers the capabilities cache re-creation.
I previously forgot to post the lang file : it's now within the attached zip file.


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In reply to Nicolas Dunand

Re: User Enrollable Groups

by Donna Graves -

Thank you all so very much.  I have been scratching my head trying to make this happen then I came upon this blog. 

THANK YOU.

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