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Groups

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Revision as of 07:37, 10 April 2007 by Petr Škoda (škoďák) (talk | contribs)
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Improving the Groups design in Moodle 1.9

Summary of problems:

  • Can not define groupings at site level
  • Groupings not implemented in modules
  • Concept of orphaned groups
  • Separate from metacourses
  • Not integrated into Moodle core
  • Unfinished and partially broken code

It would be very hard to improve current code without major refactoring and design changes. --Petr Škoda (škoďák) 02:37, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

Change groups/groupings relationship

At present both groups and groupings may belong to course – this only adds unneeded complexity and is a source of bugs in code. Each group to be in one and only one grouping. See proposed db structure.

Benefits:

  • fewer tables
  • normalized
  • simpler SQL
  • faster

Global groupings x Course groupings

Separate global and course groupings, add global tag to grouping table. Each global grouping has world wide unique identifier. Benefits:

  • allows implementation of access control – local course groupings editable by course teachers, special capability in CONTEXT_SYSTEM for managing of global groupings
  • easier backup/restore implementation – local groupings (+groups) always backed up, global groupings handled differently
  • no need for orphaned groups anymore

Metacourses and enrolments

Global groupings can fully replace the metacourses. Global groupings should allow:

  • automatic or manual sync of enrolments – reuse code from metacourses
  • setting of default sync role id with possible exception for teachers, tutors, etc.
  • import/export of grouping definitions
  • mapping global groupings during course restore (course groupings always backed/restored)

Other code cleanup

Current group code does not follow Moodle coding guide, has several unfinished/broken/obsoleted parts, is not integrated into core, etc. To do:

  • integrate setup and upgrade into main lib/db/*.*
  • remove columns from groupings table that can be replaced by permissions
  • reduce the number of functions, rewrite or fix them, move them into lib/grouplib.php
  • split GUI in /group/ – global groupings definition form and course grouping setup
  • implement module and course groupings support, fix all mods to use it (course edit form, mod edit form, etc.)
  • fix legacy functions
  • documentation

Needed time

1 month for implementation and testing.