Groupings, default group and nopermissiontocomment problem

Groupings, default group and nopermissiontocomment problem

by heli g -
Number of replies: 3

Moodle 2.6.

A Teacher has used "Students submit in groups" and "grouping for student groups" in her assignment, but appears to have omitted certain Students from Groups and Groups from the selected Grouping. On discovering this, I believe she added the students to Groups and Groups to the Grouping, but this was after submissions had already been made. (I can see no reason for her to be using Groupings at all).

There is now a default group submission, visible as all non-group members' submission (including Teachers, Admin and students who are not in Groups and have made no submissions) - and I can see no way to remove it. The student who submitted this assignment has been moved to a Group and no submission is reflected for her.

Students who were members of a Group in the Grouping when they submitted can view their submissions.

For others, clicking on the assignment gets error/moodle/nopermissiontocomment link on a page with no theme.
You can't add comments

Is there anyway to remove the default Group submission? Why can't Students access the assignment? Why are they being redirected to comments?

In the interim I have made another assignment for students who cannot access the assignment due to error/moodle/nopermissiontocomment and asked the Teacher not to use Groupings in future assignments... I can't think what else to do.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated

Heli

Average of ratings: -
In reply to heli g

Re: Groupings, default group and nopermissiontocomment problem

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Yes, once submissions have been made, it throws the database into total disarray especially if you move a student who has already submitted.  If they are set to one assignment per group, how does Moodle know if the assignment follows the student or stays in the group.

I think we need a tracker item to somehow lock this down and not allow changes to be made that can this affect but it would not be easy as groups and groupings apply to a multitude of things.

I would suggest, recreating the assignment from scrap and making sure that the grouping is set up correctly before allowing students to submit.

You could try going to View/Grade All Submissions and deleting the offending entry from there - that might fix it.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Groupings, default group and nopermissiontocomment problem

by heli g -

Thanks Emma - "throws the database into total disarray" seems to describe it. I can't see how to delete the assignment from View/Grade All Submissions. Every student that has not been assigned to a group is in 'default group' with a file uploaded, but 'No Submission' status. (Another annoyance is that I can't filter by 'default group' or sort by Group to easily locate these students). Clicking on the Assignment goes to Comments - with no option for resubmission regardless of whether I allow an extension, another attempt etc. The student who actually submitted the assignment but is now in a group has "Submitted for grading" status with no file upload and also gets redirected to Comments (for which as a student she does not have permissions) when she tries to view the assignment.

A tracker issue would be great but I am not sure what to raise:

  • Most disturbing for me is "you can't add comments" error for students who click on the assignment.
  • As an Administrator I would like to be able to delete the "default group" submission. As I understand from https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=216399 the existence of the "default group" is a consequence of the Teacher choosing "grouping for student groups". (This is not what she intended. All her students should have been in groups. Students who were not assigned to groups should not have been able to make submissions until assigned to a group).
  • Given that "default group" exists I would like to be able to filter View/Grade All Submissions by "default group" or sort by groups.

I am going to move all students who are mistakenly not assigned to groups to a "no group" group and see if this helps at all.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to heli g

Re: Groupings, default group and nopermissiontocomment problem

by heli g -

The errors mentioned above have been fixed.

I assigned all students not yet in a group to a group which I added to the grouping. So there are now no students in "default group" with inadequate permissions to comment on the submission that cannot be deleted (only Admin, Managers and Teachers not assigned to a group can now view this submission).

This removed the "you can't add comments" error for all with the exception of the student who had originally made the submission when not in a group. I logged in as another member of her group and uploaded their assignment. And the errors have gone.

My recommendation for Teachers is now: Stay away from "grouping for student groups" unless you are satisfied that your groups are in order and know what you are doing and why...

Average of ratings: Useful (1)