[Using Sakai] Multiple Group-Only access to forums

Fri Sep 13 13:25:04 PDT 2013

Hi Ken,

You're using Sakai 2.9, so as Bryan mentioned, in this version there's a
much easier way to set up topics for particular groups. The system can
automatically create multiple instances of one topic for many groups.

When you create a topic, you'll see a radio button for "Automatically
create multiple topics for groups." When you click on this button, you'll
see buttons for all groups/sections in your site.

Select groups as appropriate and and then save/publish. On the Forums home
page, you'll then see multiple topics. Each topic label will have the topic
name you entered on the "topic settings" page, and then an additional tag
with the name of the appropriate group.

This approach saves you time in several ways. First, you can enter
information and settings for all these topics just once, on one "topic
settings" page. Second, the permissions that allow only members of a
particular group to view/participate in a topic are set for you
automatically.

It sounds like this approach might be useful in the future but not now,
since you've already created all your topics. So in that case, the key
thing to remember for "group-only" permissions is that, for each forum or
topic that only one group can access, you must set permissions in two ways:

*For the group that will have access (set the appropriate permissions for
the capabilities you want these group members to have)

*For the site role to which all group members belong. So for example, if
you've created a bunch of groups with users in the "Student" role, you will
also need to set permissions for this role to "none")

And of course, you should make sure that permissions are set to "none" for
other groups too, but this is the default permission for all groups when
you create a new forum or topic (unless you change the default).

Lastly, as Bryan also noted, you don't necessarily have to create multiple
gradebook items. The Forums integration with Gradebook works by
"association"--that is, you first create an item in your gradebook, and
then you can associate a forum, topic, or even specific message with that
item. If you want, you can even change the association--your gradebook will
show the last grade you saved in the Forums tool, no matter where that was.
One approach you might take is to simply grade the forum to which all the
group-targeted topics belong.

Best,
Jim Mezzanotte
Asahi Net International

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 12:17 PM, <
sakai-user-request at collab.sakaiproject.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Auto-grading of short-answer questions (Kenneth Litwak)
>    2. Re: Auto-grading of short-answer questions (Christine Doherty)
>    3. Re: Multiple Group-Only access to forums (Kenneth Litwak)
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Kenneth Litwak <klitwak at apu.edu>
> To: sakai-user <sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>
> Cc:
> Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 09:06:01 -0700
> Subject: [Using Sakai] Auto-grading of short-answer questions
> I set up a quiz with some short answer questions.  In one simple case, I
> asked students for the last name of a particular author.  My model answer
> was
> Gorman
>
> Almost all my students gave the answer
> Gorman
>
> Sakai scored every student's answer as wrong.  Is there some trick to get
> Sakai to be able to compare strings correctly, sot ath it recognizes a
> correct answer?  Thanks.
>
> Ken
>
>
> Kenneth D. Litwak, Ph.D.
> Azusa Pacific University
> 680 E. Alosta Ave.
> Azusa, CA 91702
> 626-815-6000 x3148
> klitwak at apu.edu
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Christine Doherty <cdoherty at stanford.edu>
> To: Kenneth Litwak <klitwak at apu.edu>
> Cc: sakai-user <sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>
> Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 09:10:39 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: Re: [Using Sakai] Auto-grading of short-answer questions
> If yoy want auto-scoring for that short an answer, use Fill-in-the-Blank
> question type. Short answer/essay question type is meant for prose that
> can't be auto-scored.
>
> Christine Doherty
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Sep 13, 2013, at 9:06 AM, Kenneth Litwak <klitwak at apu.edu> wrote:
>
> I set up a quiz with some short answer questions.  In one simple case, I
> asked students for the last name of a particular author.  My model answer
> was
> Gorman
>
> Almost all my students gave the answer
> Gorman
>
> Sakai scored every student's answer as wrong.  Is there some trick to get
> Sakai to be able to compare strings correctly, sot ath it recognizes a
> correct answer?  Thanks.
>
> Ken
>
>
> Kenneth D. Litwak, Ph.D.
> Azusa Pacific University
> 680 E. Alosta Ave.
> Azusa, CA 91702
> 626-815-6000 x3148
> klitwak at apu.edu
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Kenneth Litwak <klitwak at apu.edu>
> To: Bryan Holladay <holladay at longsight.com>
> Cc: sakai-user <sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>
> Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 09:17:00 -0700
> Subject: Re: [Using Sakai] Multiple Group-Only access to forums
> HI Bryan,
>
>    I already discussion going for this week. I presume there's no way to
> get the horses back in the barn even though the door is already.  That is,
> since I didn't duplicate all the topics for this week, I am guessing theree
> is no way to get Sakai to move current topic replies based upon the group
> the poster is in into group-specific topics if I define them, is there?
> Thanks.
>
> Digression:
>    Although I wish I were full-time faculty, I'm only a full-time
> programmer for my school, and an adjunct professor.  So I tend to look at
> these things from a software developer perspective. It would really be
> helpful if Sakai made this easier.  It can't be that hard, as several other
> LMSs do it, and Moodle's approach is even open-source, so ti could be
> studied easily as a model, but I digress.
>
> Ken
>
> Kenneth D. Litwak, Ph.D.
> Azusa Pacific University
> 680 E. Alosta Ave.
> Azusa, CA 91702
> 626-815-6000 x3148
> klitwak at apu.edu
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 9:01 AM, Bryan Holladay <holladay at longsight.com>wrote:
>
>> > 36(!) separate gradebook items to cover all these forums?
>>
>> You don't need 36 gradebook items.  You can create multiple topics and
>> point them to a single GB item.  The connection between Forums and
>> Gradebook is a loose connection.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Kenneth Litwak <klitwak at apu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Bryan,
>>>
>>>    My school is on this version:  Sakai - 2.9.1.6 - Sakai 2.9.1 (Kernel
>>> 1.3.1)-
>>>
>>> I had already seen what you are talking about and did it partially.
>>> That is, I have three groups, and made most people, including "Student,"
>>> "None," and each group "Contributor."
>>>
>>>      However, it sounds like for this week I needed to create three
>>> totally separate forums so that each group could have its own forum where
>>> the group is the only thing that is "contributor."
>>>
>>>   If so, I have twelve weeks of threaded discussions students will be
>>> doing, and that means, what, 36(!) separate gradebook items to cover all
>>> these forums?  That sounds like a nightmare for computing final grades.  I
>>> always use points for everything and since I've not ever found a way to
>>> make Sakai add up points to give me a total, I have to export the gradebook
>>> to Excel and do it myself.  Having 36 instead of twelve assignments to
>>> process, is going to be really hard to manage, especially if I need to
>>> track who is really missing a score versus who posted in a different forum
>>> that week.  Do you have any suggestions for managing, preferably avoiding,
>>> this?  It seems like a very large headache to manage to me when this is so
>>> easy to do, relatively speaking, in other tools.  Thanks.
>>>
>>> Ken
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Kenneth D. Litwak, Ph.D.
>>> Azusa Pacific University
>>> 680 E. Alosta Ave.
>>> Azusa, CA 91702
>>> 626-815-6000 x3148
>>> klitwak at apu.edu
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 5:37 AM, Bryan Holladay <holladay at longsight.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> You can create forums and topics that are specifically for a single
>>>> group in Sakai.  As of 2.9.0+, there is a simpler way to achieve this
>>>> through the UI [1], but if you are running an older version, you can still
>>>> set it up manually.  All you have to do is go to the settings page for the
>>>> forum or topic you want to lock down to a single group and select "None"
>>>> for everyone's permission.  Then just find the group you want and set only
>>>> that group's permission to "Contributor".  You probably don't want to
>>>> remove the instructor permissions.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Bryan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> [1] https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/MSGCNTR-231
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 7:27 AM, Neal Caidin <neal.caidin at apereo.org>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Ken,
>>>>>
>>>>> Which version of Sakai are you on?
>>>>>
>>>>> If you don't know, you should probably be able to find it by looking
>>>>> at the bottom of your Web page. I'm reasonably sure that this feature works
>>>>> in both Sakai 2.8 and 2.9, but the user interface to configure is slightly
>>>>> different.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Neal
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Neal Caidin
>>>>> Sakai CLE Community Coordinator
>>>>> neal.caidin at apereo.org
>>>>> Skype: nealkdin
>>>>> Twitter: ncaidin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sep 13, 2013, at 1:54 AM, Kenneth Litwak <klitwak at apu.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>   In multiple learning management systems I have used before, such as
>>>>> Blackboard, FIrstClass, and Moodle, I've been able to divide students into
>>>>> groups and then have them respond to discussion forums by groups.  That
>>>>> is,when a student goes to a discussion forum,
>>>>> She posts such that only her group members can see her posts
>>>>> She can only see posts by her group members.
>>>>>
>>>>> I do not want to have weekly discussions that all students participate
>>>>> in as one big group. It makes discussions too hard to follow, manage, or
>>>>> grade.
>>>>>
>>>>>   The online help shows how to make groups and I have made the groups
>>>>> contributors to the forums but I see no evidence that the three groups that
>>>>> I have defined are being separated. How can I accomplish this?  I need to
>>>>> know right away, so I'd appreciate guidance as soon as possible please.
>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ken
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Kenneth D. Litwak, Ph.D.
>>>>> Azusa Pacific University
>>>>> 680 E. Alosta Ave.
>>>>> Azusa, CA 91702
>>>>> 626-815-6000 x3148
>>>>> klitwak at apu.edu
>>>>>  _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> sakai-user mailing list
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
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