Auto-subscription on separate group forums

Auto-subscription on separate group forums

by Peter Horrox -
Number of replies: 4

Hi My question is this,

If you set forums as auto subscribe or forced sbscription the subscription list includes all users on the course, If the forum is set to separate groups do all participants receive an email notification about posts or just the group members even though the subscribers list contains everybody? I know that non-group members or members of other groups cannot see the posts when accessing the activity but I am worried that they may receive the post via email.

 

Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.

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In reply to Peter Horrox

Re: Auto-subscription on separate group forums

by Russell Waldron -

Peter, this is important, and I can't answer you yet.

To confirm: it is more important to be certain that the wrong people do NOT receive a post, than to ensure that the right people do.

I'm trying right now to discover which of these factors (or combinations) stop a student receiving a message:

  1. Course visibility = Hide (apparently does not stop News Forum digests, in my organisation's installation)
  2. Course group mode = Separate groups or Visible groups
  3. Course format = Social format vs Topics format
  4. Section visibility = Hide
  5. Section group mode = Grouping
  6. Section access restrictions
  7. Forum visibility = Hide
  8. Forum group mode = Separate groups or Visible groups
  9. Forum grouping 
  10. Forum access restrictions (date)
  11. Forum access restrictions (completion)
  12. Forum type = News forum (seems to guarantee delivery?), Single simple discussion, Q&A, Standard
  13. Posting role = Admin, Teacher, Student, Admin impersonating Teacher or Student
  14. Post group selection = All participants, or group
  15. Forum subscription mode = Forced, Auto, Optional, None
  16. Recipient's notification settings = Email per post, Full daily digest, Headings only digest
  17. Recipient's online status at the time of digest processing
  18. Post's read-status at the time of digest processing

Have I missed any other factors? Can anyone rule any of these variables out?

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In reply to Russell Waldron

Re: Auto-subscription on separate group forums

by Przemek Kaszubski -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Hello,

My first post in this community smile

I've just stumbled over this very problem on one the Moodles I manage (2.5). Right now I can - sadly - confirm the concern expressed. Indeed:

Although:

  1. Forum is set to "Separate Groups"
  2. (Non-editing) Teacher and students are appropriately assigned to the same group (and no other groups)
  3. (Non-editing) Teacher is careful to select the group s/he wishes to post the message to (especially in the case of non-editing teachers the possibility to choose a group s/he does not belong should not even be there?, but alas the full down menu with all the groups in the course unfolds)

If

  1. Forum subscription mode is set to "Auto Subscription" or "Forced subscription" (as in News forum) before sending any message
  2. I HAVE NOT YET TESTED THE OTHER SUBSCRIPTION SETTINGS BUT WILL

Then

  1. The Group's (non-editing) teacher's message gets forwarded to ***all forum subscribers*** REGARDLESS of their group membership, NOT only to the group members.

I have always been under the impression that in Moodle 1.9 the group mode worked well with all the forum types and subscription modes. Now this looks to be a flaw in Moodle 2.5. I have not tested 2.6.

Hope this mini report is helpful. I'll be interested in seeing this privacy / security issue addressed. For the moment it seems the only thing to do is to disable subscription for forums with a separate groups mode sad

Kind regards,

Przemek

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In reply to Peter Horrox

Svar: Auto-subscription on separate group forums

by Simon Heissler -

Unfortunately it is reportet since 2.2 as a bug - but nothing happens. Please vote: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-36460

/Simon

 

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In reply to Simon Heissler

Re: Svar: Auto-subscription on separate group forums

by Przemek Kaszubski -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Voted. Thanks for pointing me to the tracker. As I say there, the issue of groups and groupings could be reconsidered at the module level - so teachers can override group memberships for specific contexts , just like roles and permissions can be (re-)assigned locally....

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