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Request group folders for your class instance on IDAS

An instructor can request group folders in the IDAS instance for their class.

1. Email research-computing@uiowa.edu and let us know:

   1. Your class name and number. Please include the section number, for example, FIN:1200:0003.

   2. How many group folders you want for your class.

2. ITS - Research Services staff will set up group folders for your class and let you know when the folders are ready.

3. You can then add students to each group folder using Access Management. Please see details in the section below.

4. After students have been added to their groups, it will take about 1-2 hours for permissions to propagate through the system. If students have an IDAS session running, they will need to restart their session using the steps here for the changes to be picked up.

5. Students can access the group folders inside the classdata folder in the IDAS class instance. For details, please see this section.

The group folders will be set up as follows:

1. We usually create the folders with the names group01, group02, group03, ... to ensure consistency in naming.

2. The following permissions are used for the group folders:

   1. The instructor of the class is the owner of the folders and has rwx permissions to the folders. The instructor can view, copy and edit files inside the folders.

   2. For each group folder:

      1. The instructor can add specific students to each group folder using Access Management, as outlined in the section below. The students who are given access to the folder will have rwx permissions to that folder. Those students can view, copy and edit files inside the folder.

      2. Everyone else in the class will have no permissions to view files inside the folder. That way, only members of a group can view files inside their group folder.

3. The group folders are created inside the classdata folder, because classdata is a shared location that can be accessed by more than 1 student in the class.

Suggested usage for the group folders

Group folders can help students share files with each other. However, they have some limitations.

• Editing Jupyter notebooks in the group folders can cause permissions issues.

  • Jupyter automatically creates a hidden folder called .ipynb_checkpoints. This hidden folder might not follow the permissions that were set when we created the group folders .

  • The .ipynb_checkpoints folder will be owned by 1 student, preventing the other students in the group from creating or editing notebooks in the group folder.

• In RStudio, new .R files might not automatically follow the permissions that were set when we created the group folders.

• Multi-user editing is not supported. If a student has a Jupyter notebook open in their account, another student will not be able to save changes to that same notebook.

Suggested workflows for these group folders:

• Each student creates a copy of their own .R script or Jupyter notebook in their IDAS home directory, outside of the classdata folder.

• When students are ready to share their .R scripts or Jupyter notebooks with their team members, they can copy & paste the finished script file or notebook into the group folder.

• These Linux commands may help troubleshoot permissions issues:

Add users to group folders using Access Management

After the group folders have been created, instructors can use the steps below to add students to each group.

1. Login to Access Management - https://iam.uiowa.edu/access.

2. Under Services, click on Interactive Data Analytics Service and then click on the name of the class and group folder you want to edit.

3. In the Members tab, click the Add button. 

4. In the popup that opens, enter the HawkID, name, or email address of the user you want to add and click the search icon.

5. In the list of search results, click on the user you want to grant access to the group folder. 

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to add additional users as needed.

7. Click Accept.

Remove users from the group folders using Access Management

An instructor can remove students from a group, using the following steps.

1. Login to Access Management - https://iam.uiowa.edu/access.

2. Under Services, click on Interactive Data Analytics Service and then click on the name of the class and group folder that you want to edit.

3. In the Members tab, check the boxes in front of the names of the users that you want to remove from the group.

4. Click Remove.

5. The users will no longer be able to access that group folder.

Accessing the group folders

After the group folders have been created, they will be inside the classdata folder in the IDAS instance for the class.

In JupyterLab, the group folders will be visible inside the classdata folder as in the following screenshot.

In RStudio, the group folders will be visible inside the classdata folder as in the following screenshot.

Using the group folders

In Terminal, these folders can be listed out with the usual ls command, such as:

ls -al ~/classdata/group01

Below are a few issues or questions that students may have while working with the group folders.

Example 1 - A student created a file in group01 but other members of group01 can’t view or edit that file.

Suggested steps: the student who created the file can use Terminal in IDAS to set permissions again if needed: 

cd ~/classdata/group01
chmod 770 file-name

Example 2 - Students want to check what files are available inside their group folder and what the permissions of the files are.

Suggested steps: Members of the group can check the permissions of the files using Terminal, for example:

cd ~/classdata/group01
ls -al

Other support articles

• Requesting IDAS for your course

• Accessing the shared class folder on IDAS

• Navigating Jupyter Notebook and RStudio

• Troubleshooting Common Issues

Contact

If you have any questions or comments, please contact research-computing@uiowa.edu.