Moodle plugins directory: Groupoverview | Moodle.org
Groupoverview
Corinna H, 
Software Engineering DHBWMotivation
Whereas teachers can always see an overview of all the groups and groupings, students can - at the best - only look at one group in the 'Participants' view of the course at the same time. There is no way for them to view a list of all the other groups, not to mention the groupings.
However, in a course where students are encouraged to collaborate and to take a look at the other groups' work on a regular basis, this can quickly become an obstacle. They need an easier and more accessible way to find out what the other groups are doing. This plugin aims to provide such a functionality.
Let's say for example that each group is working on creating a portfolio about an author who was a leading exponent of a literary movement. These literary movements could be used to divide the groups into different categories such as 'Realism', 'Naturalism' and 'Stream of consciousness'.
The teacher then maps the groups working on Gustave Flaubert's and Theodor Storm's portfolio to the category 'Realism', the groups that are preparing the portfolios of Émile Zola and Stephen Crane to 'Naturalsim' and the groups responsible for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's, Jane Austen's and Edgar Allan Poe's portfolios to 'Romanticism'.
This way, each group quickly knows who they can ask for help on specific subjects and who they have to talk to in order to avoid overlappings of the portfolios and make the overall collection as coherent as possible.
Additionally, the groupings of the course could also be used as categories, so that the students can take a look at them.
Usage
Note: It only makes sense to use this plugin if the group mode of the course is set to 'Visible Groups'. Keep in mind that even if this is not the case, students _will_ be able to see the name of the other groups. However, the elements of the list of groups link to the specific groups in the 'Participants' view of the course which can only be seen by the students when the group mode is set to 'Visible Groups' as mentioned above.
- Add the module instance into the course.
- Define at least one category.
- Save the settings for the module instance and keep the editing mode on.
- Choose a category for all the groups of the course.
Author
The groupoverview module was developed by Corinna Hertweck <corinnah.development@gmail.com> at the DHBW Karlsruhe, Germany <softwareengineering.dhbw.ka@gmail.com>.
Credits
For the implementation of the Groupoverview plugin, David Mudrák's Poster plugin was used as a template. It was very helpful in that a lot of its code was reusable and so it gave this plugin its basic structure. Therefore, many thanks to David!
License
Copyright (C) 2016 Corinna Hertweck <corinnah.development@gmail.com>
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses.
Screenshots
Contributors
http://integration.moodle.org/job/Precheck%20remote%20branch/23177/artifact/work/smurf.html
I have one concern at the moment. As you have stated:
"It only makes sense to use this plugin if the group mode of the course is set to 'Visible Groups'. Keep in mind that even if this is not the case, students _will_ be able to see the name of the other groups."
I believe this violates the intention of group security when setting a course to "Separate groups". Although you are only allowing the group name to be visible, I believe the intent is that no part of a group be visible to a user who does not have a capability to access all groups when they are separate. Because of that, I believe this module is providing a "loop hole" to get around that group security, even if it is only minor.
I think you need to add code in there that checks for the ability to view details of a group, and only display the name and link to the group if that ability exists for the user. So if the group mode is set to "SEPARATE", then the user has to have the "moodle/site:accessallgroups" capability or be part of a group in order to see any of that's group's information.
Do you know of any other examples in Moodle or any plugins where the group names are visible even if separate groups are set? I couldn't find any when I looked.
Thanks.
First and foremost thank you for your review.
You're right – the group security would be violated if the group mode was set to "SEPERATE".
During development I was thinking that it doesn't make too much sense to use the plugin in this case. If I prohibited the students from seeing the other groups names, it'd make even less sense because the teachers already have a view of all the groups and the activity would be of no use to the students. Therefore, I opted to not check for the group mode in this first version, but you got me thinking. In this case, group security (especially considering that someone adding an instance of this module might not know exactly what the plugin does) is more important than how much sense it makes to use it, so I'll add the necessary code for this as soon as possible. (I'm a bit busy right now, but hopefully, it won't take too long.)
Also thanks for your issue on GitHub – I'll look into that as well.
Thanks Corinna for sharing your plugin with the community, and thanks Michael for detailed and useful peer-review. I agree with Mike's reasoning that this should really be fixed and I am happy to see the Corinna agrees, too. With the hope that required checks will be added as soon as possible, I am going to approve this plugin now. You are cleared to land, welcome to the Plugins directory!