I would personally prefer if it was implemented as separate module similar to current choice. The problem is we need much more settings for various different scenarios and there is no place for that in course table and I do not think we should add more stuff into that anyway. Ideally it should be possible to distribute students into groups from selected grouping, which means you need several different groups selections in one course. Current module framework should be suitable for this task and there would be no changes required in core code, everything could be contained in mod/choosegroup/* directory.

Petr

I agree with you that it is not good to add and add fields in the course table to configure just another course setting. The feature to configure that students can enrol in one or many groups has indeed little priority.

However that feature as such that they can enrol themselves and not by the teacher is a reasonable one, espescially if they enrol themselves in the course, so why not also into groups. And also the possibility to configure the max. number of group members for a group.

We discussed with Martin in Heidelberg the alternative "choice". He did not like it so much because it is kind of workaraund - you use an activity for such a thing like group functionality. Instead he was really interested in the code modifications which directly affect the group functionality.

I know the choice alternative and we use it also at our organization. With a choice students can select their preferred group themselves. But still with standard Moodle the teacher has to create the groups and distribute the students after the choice is completed. For this we added a little modification to the file mod/choice/report.php: Here is the diff:

253a254,289
> //GHD: go through all choice options, if there is no group with name = choice option, create the group and put the members into it (i.e. the students which voted for this choice)
>
> if ($download == "groups") {
> $choices = get_records('choice_options','choiceid',$choice->id);
> $groups = get_groups($course->id);
> foreach ($choices as $choice) {
> $flag = 0;
> foreach ($groups as $group) {
> if ($group->name == $choice->text) { > $flag = 1; > $grouparray[$choice->text] = $group->id; > echo $group->id."\n"; > }
> }
> if ($flag == 0) { > $grp["name"] = $choice->text; > $grp["lang"] = $course->lang; > $grp["fho_maxallowedgroupmembers"] = $choice->maxanswers; > $groupid=groups_create_group($course->id, $grp); > $grouparray[$choice->text] = $groupid; > }
> }
> if ($users) {
> foreach ($users as $user) {
> if (!empty($answers[$user->id])) { > $userchoice = get_record('choice_options','id',$answers[$u ser->id]->optionid); > groups_add_member($grouparray[$userchoice->text],$user->id ); > }
> }
> }
> // $url = $CFG->wwwroot."/group/index.php?id=".$course->id;
> redirect($CFG->wwwroot."/group/index.php?id=".$course->id);
> }
>
> // end of modification
>
270c306,310
<
—
> echo "</td><td>";
> $options["download"] = "groups";
> print_single_button("report.php", $options, get_string("creategroups"));
> echo "</td><td>";
> helpbutton("creategroups",get_string('creategroups'));

Maybe, you can discuss this with Martin? I could also imagine to use a (new) capability like "moodle/course:managemygroupmembership" which allows a user to enrol himself into a group.

Anyway we all agree we need such feature, the technical stuff and implementation is just a detail.

1- The capabilities needed to allow one student to add/delete himself to/from a group (2 capabilities, IMO).
2- Any other "special" thing, like max number of members... etc.

1) should/could be implemented as a "pure" roles/capabilities solution and it has been requested a lot of times in forums... or perhaps a custom utility could address it, offering students what groups can be selected and other types of controls.

2) well that's IMO more difficult to address, because the possibilities are infinite (max number of users in a group, define groups as mandatory disjunct, to force one participant to be added to only one from a given set, date controlling when participants can add themselves....) and we should analyse it completely before starting new developments.

Just one quick thought, ciao

yes, it would be great to get this new feature in Moodle as soon as possible. I do not think that this feature should get little priority. I our daily work at school we need to split our classes and learning groups into smaller groups .... why can't we do this in Moodle.

I think it should be very important to have an additional thing like max number of students in a group. If I want to get a classroom work in selforganized groups then the students should enrol into one or many groups theirself. If I want to get small number of students within each group then Moodle must know the max number of students.

Ralf

I'm very much against making this a mod activity (my general rule is that if it can't be used every week in a 16 week course then it shouldn't be an activity) and all for making it a core feature that appears part of the groups interface.

I agree it would be very useful for all kinds of things (seminars, project work) to allow:

• limiting of group sizes (per grouping or even per group) to max N, and
• students to choose their own group (or one group per grouping)

I feel pretty sure an elegant way to do this must be possible.

I've not looked at these patches yet (thanks, Gisela! Nice to meet you too!) but hopefully can do so soon.

It strikes me that an issue is how students access the interface for managing their own group membership. Why not a groups icon where next to the activity icon where students have the necessary capability(s) and the module has self select groups enabled. When viewing the module an icon (like Logs).

Hmmm... just thinking there's lots of logic to consider if, say, students can join or leave a group in a forum set up for separate groups... plus lots of other interesting scenarios.

[ Show » ]
Martin Dougiamas - 25/Mar/08 12:45 AM At the moment I'm still leaning to core tables and API (to keep all group stuff together, and it's natural to add 1-1 fields to groups table) but there could be a very light activity module (with a setting to choose a grouping) so that a teacher could insert a "group choice" activity in the course. Perhaps we could even expand Choice to have subtypes like Assignment. Hmm ..."

Are you still leaning this way?

I'm curious about the odds of this getting into 2.0. (We have a report due soon, and I need to put something in it)

There is further comment here: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-1310

I DO have another way to perform tha task: allowing that students can self-assign to an existing (teacher-created) group.
This is based on old ideas from Gustav Delius (I think). A separate page devoted ONLY to present groups (within Groupings) to students and allow then to self-assign to a group. A maxplaces factor controsl teh number of students on each group. This page is linked from People block, just like "Participants", it s another way to look at participants.

I DO have implemented this in 1.9.3 and it is now working in production. The solution Does'nt need to modify any core table, neither creates new ones. I use the "config" filed on groupings table to store the settings (applicable in a per-grouping basis, not per group: I am a groupings guy). I will attahch the code, or set a url for demo.

We have some development capacity. Just figuring out IF we go to Moodle, what to do about this issue.
THANKS Enrique.