[Server-devel] Managing global site resources when using segregated groups

[Martin Langhoff]

On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 1:27 AM, David Leeming
<david at leeming-consulting.com> wrote:
> I am getting to grips with the impressive functionality of 0.6!

Surely you exaggerate ;-)

> -          I have global resources, i.e. a general library for everyone to
> view. I set this up as a course called “Library” and added (a) a link to a
> public folder that I set up on the XS, and (b) course folders with resources
> uploaded from the admin XO. I want ALL users to be able to see this course
> on the front page of Moodle. Initially, users are NOT assigned roles as
> students in the Library course. I set guest access.

That is a good start. Some hints (that you may be familiar with)... A
better alternative to achieve what you are after is to use a
_glossary_ in the 'site course' (the moodle homepage is a course with
a single "section" -- turn editing on to add a glossary there). It
goes like this

 - with the 'coursecreator´ XO, visit moodle homepage
 - turn editing on
 - add a new glossary -- name it 'Library'
 - add entries as desired, attach files where needed...
 - mark it as global (or "sitewide") glossary

now, here is where it gets advanced... if you can login as the 'admin'
user (see the 'XS Techniques' wikipage), go to the 'filters'
configuration, and activate: activities autolink, glossary autolink.
Details here http://docs.moodle.org/en/Filters

(XS-0.7 will have these filter preconfigured...)

Now, if you have a glossary entry called "Foobar", *any* text that
mentions Foobar will be auto-linked.

You can use 'Resource auto-link' but that is per-course, and won't
take a global set. So a global glossary is your ticket...

> -          I am wanting to divide my users into two classes, by setting up 2
> courses Class A and Class B, adding some to each using the admin XO course
> admin, assign roles (students)

Good.

> I switched on Presence and it works, i.e.  members of Class A can only see
> each other and members of Class B can only see each other. Both classes can
> see the teacher (admin XO in this case).

Excellent!

> The teacher can access the Library
> and share resources with ALL users at the same time. However, users can not
> see the Library themselves to access resources on their own.

Global glossary to the rescue...

> I then added all the users to the Library course, as students. Of course,
> predictably they can now see all the members of the other classes.

Yup, understood. Global glossary...

> A second question, two of my test XOs are B4s. In Moodle the front page
> comes up as a log on screen asking for username and password, despite the
> fact they are registered and appear in the admin OK.

Being B4 doesn't affect it (my XOs are a mix of B4s and C1s). Maybe
Browse.xo or the OS need to be upgraded.

hth,



m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
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