Manage groups guide

The Groups feature enables lecturers and Programme Administrators to assign students to one or more groups. There are three ways of assigning students to group on a module:

1. Use the Groups menu where groups and student allocation is created either manually or automatically.
2. Use the Bulk Enrolment menu to create groups and student allocation via a CSV file upload.
3. Use the Group choice option. Lecturer will need to create the Groups, but students choose which group they want to join.

You can assign different group modes to activities within Moodle to shape how that activity behaves. For example:

• Within Assignment activities, applying group mode (via the common module settings option) will allow different markers to filter submissions by group. This means that they can more easily identify and mark the submissions of the group they are responsible for.
• Within collaborative activities such as Forums or Wikis, applying group mode (via the common module settings option) can be used to engage students in group work ( i.e. each group has their own collaborative workspace).
• Within assignments, activating the Group assignment option enables students to submit one piece of work on behalf of their group and for you to assign the same mark and feedback to the entire group. 
• Within activities and resources, selecting Group under the Restrict access option in the activity/resource settings can be used to restrict which group can access this content. By default, the activity or resource will be visible to all students but only accessible to those in the group. If you want the activity or resource to be hidden completely from students who are not in the relevant group, select the eye next to Group to hide it.

Group visibility

There are four levels of visibility available for groups.

• Visible - All course participants can view who is in the group
• Only visible to members - students not in the group can't view the group or its members
• Only see own membership - a student can see they are in the group but can't view other group members
• Hidden - only staff can view the group and its members

Groupings

Groupings are collections of groups. If a student is in more than one group, or you want a subset of groups to work on a specific activity (e.g. a group assignment) you will need to use Groupings for the Groups to work correctly on the activity.

This scenario below provides an insight into how Groupings works.

How does the lecturer want the groups activity to work?

In Moodle, the lecturer wants to create a collaborative workspace using a Forum for each Project Group to communicate with their Project Group.

Groups available on Moodle: 

• Tutor Group 1

• Tutor Group 2

• Project Group A

• Project Group B

• Project Group C

• Project Group D

Groups Joe Bloggs belongs to:

Tutor Group 1 & Project Group B

Group/grouping settings required:

Set up a Grouping called Project Grouping and add the following groups:

• Project Group A

• Project Group B

• Project Group C

• Project Group D

Under the Common module settings option in Forum settings, apply separate group mode and select Project Grouping.

Result

Each Project Group has its own collaborative workspace. If you had not set up Groupings in this scenario, Moodle would have no way of knowing which groups needed to be attached to the Forum. Joe Bloggs would have had access to two Forums - one for Tutor Group 1 and one for Project Group B!