One of the problems we’ve had until now is managing the Mechanical MOOC groups once the initial groups were created. Why don’t we use existing software that is good at doing this?
There is an API for Google groups that we can use to create groups and add members. I think the groups need to be in a domain that we manage. I don’t know if that means associated with Google Apps - it may?
So is the API only facilitating subscription to the list and managing the list itself?
Users will have to interact with a normal Google group, set their preferences and so, but they are subscribed automatically?
It sounds like a good idea, and I don’t think you need Google accounts, but it makes it easier if the group intends to use stuff such as Google docs; otherwise access can be a bit of a problem.
The idea would be to only use the API for initial creation and adding the users. After that they can use the normal Google groups functionality to manage the group. Part of the reason behind this would be to avoid having to build and support the interface and process for maintaining a group.
At the moment we’re not really using any calendar/docs functionality, but it may be a nice feature to also create a calendar for every group and add event like hangouts etc to it?
We do need to be carefull to not marry the concept too much with a specific platform
Totally agree with the last sentence, but using a Google group is kind of like jumping head first? 