The group area allows an instructor or assistant with Group privileges to create and manage groups of enrolled students within various projects. This may be useful for assigning group-specific tests or assignments, brainstorming, collaborative projects, online discussions and case studies, peer editing or responses, and so on.
There are two ways to create groups: manually or by using automated tools to generate the groups. To facilitate the creation of multiple sets of groups, groups are collected together by type. An example of a group type may be "Tutorials" or "Project A". This feature lets students belong to different groups across multiple projects.
Creating groups automatically allows an instructor to specify the number of groups to create, or the number of students per group, and populate groups accordingly.
Enter the group type, group prefix (such as "Tutorial" - the groups will then be named "Tutorial 1", "Tutorial 2",...), and a default description that will be applied to each group. To determine the number of groups that will be created, enter the number of students per group, or the number of groups. Groups will automatically be created accordingly. Check the box beside "Fill groups randomly upon creation" to populate groups evenly at random. Uncheck this box to create the groups, but populate them manually at a later time. Finally, choose which tools will be made avialable to this groups (File Storage, Forum, Blog, Links, etc.) then use the Create button.
It is also possible to create groups manually, one by one. This is a good way of creating groups if you have particular needs in terms of which students work together, and a relatively small class. This method is also good for adding groups to existing projects or types of groups. For example, if groups were created and populated automatically, and then several new students enroll, it's possible to manually add the new students to a new group within an existing project or type. A single group might be created to which students who missed a quiz could be assigned, so they could take a makeup test. A single group might be created with the blog tool enabled, so all students in the class can post to the same blog.
Enter the type of project, title, and description. Also choose which tools will be made avialable to this groups (File Storage, Forums, Blog, etc.) and use the Create button.
From the groups page, it is possible to Edit a group's title, description and tools, or Delete a group entirely.
To manage the members of a group, select the group and use the Members button. The group members screen displays the course list. All unassigned students can automatically be added to the group by using the Assign Unassigned button, or picked manually and saved using the drop down menus, and then the using Save button.