Itamar Tzadok

or try the Dataform plugin as an alternative to the Database module.

The main effort would be creating and setting up the input fields. The Dataform simplifies a bit the process by allowing you to duplicate fields.

Then you can prepare the table with the designated field patterns, something like:

You can also make fields required such that the student will have to enter something in them to be able to submit.

Then you can paste the table into a view template and that's how the submission form will display to the student.

You can also create designated views with different layouts for the instructor for management purposes.

And so on.

This is a role thing. You can create a designated role similar to guest role and assign the students that role in the courses where they should not have write permissions.

Yes.

You can add to your theme's frontpage layout something like

if (!$PAGE->user_allowed_editing()) {
    $bodyclasses[] = 'hide_settings_block';
}

and to the theme's core css something like

body.hide_settings_block .block_settings{
    display:none;
}

This should hide the block from anyone without editing permission on the frontpage.

It is possible, but you need to hack the email auth plugin or use an alternate plugin that does that. Very likely that this has been done but afaict no such plugin has been publicly released. I'm using an alternate plugin that leaves the new account unconfirmed and sends a message to admin. Admin can then add to cohort and confirm (or not).

The Dataform set (the module, the resource and the block) is actively maintained and constantly enhanced. Most recent build has been released yesterday (for release management reasons, downloads are currently available only from the site stated above). We use it widely on our production site and it has been downloaded and tested/used by others too. How fully functional it is depends on what you do with it. Some advanced functionality has not been tested throroughly yet, but you may not need it (at least for starters). Otherwise, it is fairly stable. The beta classification will change to stable sometime in the next couple of months.