Sharing documents for group projects

Group projects are a way life here at Ross. Computers are also deeply embedded in our lives. Combine these two facts together, and you come to realize that students need the tools to share documents that they create in the completion of their group projects.

The University has made two quite powerful tools available to students to support this activity:

• IFS: This is the long-standing, well-established --- if not well known --- way that the University has supported file sharing among students. It works very well. I've used it for years.
• CTools: This is new this year. CTools allows every student to create a Web site for every group project that is similar to those you see in CTools for a course.
  1. Click on Workspace setup
  2. Click on "New"
  3. Select "Project Website" and then click on the "Continue" button
  4. Fill in the descriptive information on the next page, and then click on the "Continue" button
  5. Select whichever tools you want to use. Be sure to select "Resources" if you want to be able to share files within your group
  6. Publish the site
  7. Click on the Tab with the site name
  8. Click on "Site info" on the left
  9. Click on the "Edit access" button
  10. Click on "Add participant"
      1. Put the uniqname of each member of your group in the "Username" textbox
      2. Select the button "Assign all participants to the same role"
      3. Click on the "Continue" button
  11. Assign each group member the "Member" role
  12. Notify each participant (or not)
  13. Click on the "Finish" button
  This site is now available for sharing files among just these group members.

Of course, these tools are not perfect. However, they go a long way to providing the tools that can make group projects and the associated file handling much better.