Groups

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.

Documentation