Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -
Number of replies: 15

Hi Im getting this message EVEN after adding the "ask question" / "add topic" to the list of allowed roles in a plain old general forum. 

You do not have permission to add a new discussion topic for all participants.

This is what I am doing.

1. start with clean moodle and course (Moodle 2.7)

ADMINISTRATION

2. From the list above I chose permissions.

3. I see this...

Add questionmod/forum:addquestionSpam riskNon-editing teacherPrevent, TeacherPrevent, ManagerPrevent
Allow

Then I hover over the + button which says ALLOW and form the drop down on the NEXT page that follows I chose student, and then add role (or similar)

I DO this and it now says...

Add questionmod/forum:addquestionSpam riskStudentPrevent, Non-editing teacherPrevent, TeacherPrevent, ManagerPrevent

Great. Except NO. It does NOT work. As I click "switch role to student" to check it all works and.... F^@&£*@ moodle. It STILL says .. 

You do not have permission to add a new discussion topic for all participants.

EVEN though I have correctly added  allowed student role to "ask question"

Any reasons why this is? PLEASE I have work to do, and sometime wonder whether simpl tasks like this are so fraught with hassle..


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In reply to Dom F

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers
Are you using groups? What type of forum is it?
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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

Hi Mary

Thankyou as always.

As far as I know, no groups. Usual general discussion forum. 

I created a sysadmin account and shared it with your jabber email account. I dont know if this helps but trying to figure this out without access would be much harder I think.

The direct link, the account details are in that email.

Regards

Dom

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In reply to Dom F

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

(I sent you a PM) By default students should be able to add new discussion topics in a general forum so there is no need to change any permissions here. The "add question" only applies to the Q and A forum which I don't believe you are using. There must be something amiss here - is this forum in an actual course or is it on the front page of the site?

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

Also Mary, most annoyingly (even more) is that students cant rate either EVEN THOUGH the forum settings show...

CapabilityRisksRoles with permissionProhibited
Course
Add ratings to itemsmoodle/rating:rateAuthenticated userPrevent, StudentPrevent, Non-editing teacherPrevent, TeacherPrevent, ManagerPrevent
Allow

So unbelievably frustrating, when so much highly social functionality is locked up and the key has been thrown away...

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In reply to Dom F

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Ok -simple answer: my first question was -did you have groups set up? Checking out your forum it is called "Group forum "and is set to separate groups. However, there are no students in the groups. That means that students can't post because they are not in groups. Either put the students into one of the groups OR remove the groups and set the forum to no groups. They should then be able to post without any special capabilities being changed.

Once you've done that and they can post, then start a new thread if they are still having problems with rating each others' posts. For them to be able to rate forum posts you need to set to 'Allow' the capability mod/forum:rate

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

Thats very kind of you. Not sure I follow 100% but will follow your steps closely and let you know how I get on

Thanks Mary

D

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

Hi Mary

So I found a precious few minutes to follow your kind sugegstion to remove groups from any course where I am having this problem - DONE - and yet ****STILL***** when I switch roles to student they **STILL*** cannot do anything other than DELETE or EDIT a topic. What on earth is that about? How can this once simple process now be so fraught with headaches?

I need to have this forum operational with two hours now and Im really, really very upset that Moodle 2.7 seems to have made my life a total misery.

ANY suggestions URGENTLY appreciated as this has really screwed up my teaching plans. to drag the uni into more social learning styles. You can probably sense how fed up I truly am.

Your login still works if you have a moment ?

http://tinyurl.com/hbc4cfk

Thanks in advance

D

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

And what really makes my blood boil is that when I create a plain simple general  forum group mode is FORCED (there is NO choice) set to separate - I cant change that, EVEN if that was the solution (which I have no idea if it is) I know this becuase i went back to create ANOTHER test forum and lo-and-behold the groups mode is HARD WIRED to groups - I cannto change this - so this nothing I can do anything about

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In reply to Dom F

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Go into your course and from the course administration block click Edit settings and scroll down and check Groups. Make sure it is set to No groups - then they won't be forced in the forums (or anywhere).

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

Hi Mary

I did that and now "viewing as a student" as before to test this -  I cant see any way of them interacting. The edit/delete link has gone (good , I guess) but there is STILL no reply button.

Just what DOES it take to allow the kids to just reply to a siumple general forum topic? This is maddening...

Dom

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

THis is what the course is set to...

Groups

Group modeHelp with Group mode
  No groups  
Force group modeHelp with Force group mode
  No  
Default grouping
  None 

And this is what the FORUM is set to...


Visible
  Show  
ID numberHelp with ID number
Group modeHelp with Group mode
  No groups 
GroupingHelp with Grouping
  None 

And yet STILL students are banished from posting a reply??? I do not see any "reply" link. This forum is uncommentable to them which is so pointless.

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In reply to Dom F

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Have you actually tried with a real student account? Make a fake student from site admin; enrol them into the course and see if they can reply. It is a convenient feature, the switch role to student but it isn't reliable and before claiming that Moodle isn't working as it should, I would try with an actual student account.

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

will certain try that. The login as feature seems to have also moved...


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In reply to Dom F

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Dom F -

Hi Mary

Well I appreciate your honesty about the reliability of Moodle in this area. As yes  - very definitely the switch profile feature just isnt working here and is the cause of all this grief.

Is this bug logged in the queue? 

D

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In reply to Dom F

Re: Allowing students to add topic / ask question - why wont this work?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Actually, in this case I tested the switch role to student on our sandbox site demo.moodle.net and it does work for a forum as you have it set up, so I suspect in this particular instance it might be your custom theme, which I remember has been discussed on here before. (You could easily check that by switching to the standard Clean theme temporarily) That said it is always better to use a test student account. Here's a direct documentation link to an FAQ about switch role to student: Why doesn't 'switch role to' within a course seem to work properly?

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