13 August 2015, 23:42

Can it be made possible for the Staff role to be able to enroll students in groups via CSV?

We are using a lot of controlled groups for submission, these groups are setup by various Learning Technologists who do not have site or institution admin rights. Where the group numbers are large the site/institution admins then have to populate the groups by CSV but it would be really helpful if this feature was available to the Staff role so that our Learning Technologists and other support staff could manage the bulk enrollments directly.

Thanks,

Tim

13 August 2015, 23:51

Apologies, I think I've put this in the wrong place.

14 August 2015, 9:40

Hello Tim,

No problem of putting it into this forum. I created a wishlist item at https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1484714 which helps us track any wishes made. It's certainly a possibility to allow staff to add group members via CSV to a group. It's not on our immediate roadmap.

Should they also be allowed to create groups via CSV then or just be able to add users? Only groups created via CSV can have people added via CSV.

Another option would be to change the screen for adding users in bulk in a controlled group by a group admin so that you can select users more easily, e.g. by starting to type a name and then it finds it quickly like when you send a message to someone. Would that be of interest to your staff or do you prefer the CSV option for your use case?

Cheers

Kristina

15 August 2015, 1:26

Thanks Kristina,

Creating groups and populating groups via spreadsheet would be ideal. We can get necessary data (usernames) exported from Blackboard so it would work out quicker for us than adding users individually.

The auto 'find/complete' sounds like a great enhancement too although the bulk upload via spreadsheet would be the main priority for us.

Tim

17 August 2015, 13:03

Hi Tim,

We came across the same situation where we were involved in a lot of group creation process. We are using a grouping script now and it saves us a lot of trouble.

The grouping script that we use is a Blackboard-Mahara integration tool. It works nicely when a lecturer who has a Blackboard course also wants to use Mahara for the same class. Student accounts can be created in Mahara and are put into groups using the Blackboard course IDs. 

Basically the integration tool has two components. One is from the Blackboard system outputting 3 CSV files. The other is a script in Mahara to read the CSV files and create groups.

The jsp file in Blackboard end, which can be downloaded from the wiki plugin page, was developed by Stephen Loard as part of our Course Request Utility. It’s not a straight forward building block install. But all what it does is to output the 3 CSV files (users.csv, groups.csv and members.csv) in a format that the script in Mahara can read.

These feed files then can be used by a grouping script, which was initially developed by Catalyst IT for AUT University, to create users,  groups, and establish memberships in Mahara accordingly.

We are happy to share the file format of the three CSV files and the script in Mahara. 

Kind regards,

Shen

17 August 2015, 23:29

Thanks Shen, 

This integration sounds interesting.  Once the 3 CSVs are created by Blackboard are they sent to Mahara or would a Mahara Admin pick these up and upload them to Mahara?

Tim

20 August 2015, 8:32

Hi Tim

The CSV files are sent to the Mahara server and get processed in a cron job.

Kind regards,

Shen