Manage groups guide

Lecturers can opt to automatically create groups in their modules. This option will form student groups by allocating members randomly or alphabetically.

1. Select Participants from the contextual navigation menu to open the module's list of enrolled users. 
2. Change the drop-down menu from Enrolled users to Groups. 

3. Select Auto-create group.
4. In the General settings, choose Naming scheme to name the auto-generated groups.
   • You can choose by Letter or Number e.g. Group@ will give you Group A, Group B, Group C etc. Group # will give you Group 1, Group 2, Group 3 etc.
5. Specify whether you want to Auto create based on total number of groups or number of students per group. 
6. If you want to enable Group messaging, so that the students can use Moodle messages to communicate, select Yes from the Group messaging drop-down list.
   • If you or other lecturers want to view and participate in the Group messaging, then you will need to add yourself and other staff to the group.
7. Under Group members settings choose members from which you wish to create the groups from Select members with role drop-down menu. You can choose from: All, Students, Lecturer or Other roles. You can also select members group a specific group from the drop-down menu.
8. Allocate members drop-down menu can be used to choose the method that Moodle is going to use to create groups. You can allocate group members alphabetically using name or id number or do a totally random assignment.
9. If you select the option to use members per group then you can also check an option to prevent last small group. Selecting this option will allocate additional members to an existing group rather than creating a new group with fewer members.
10. If you wish to use Grouping select the grouping from Create in grouping. Alternatively, you can create a new grouping and specify the name in the Grouping name field.
11. Before creating these groups, you can preview to see whether you have the groups as expected.
12. Select Submit when done.
13. If you want to add Group messaging to the Groups you will need to edit each group individually.

Please note: Any groups created automatically are visible by default. You cannot select another visibility setting or change the visibility after they are created.

You can quickly enrol participants on groups or edit their group membership from the Participants list.

Enrol via the Participants List

1. Open the Participants List
2. In the Groups column, select the pencil icon next to a participant's list of group memberships. If they are not in any groups yet, it will say "no groups".
3. Select the group(s) you want to add the participant to from the dropdown list.
4. Select the save icon to save the membership.

Edit group membership via the Participants List

1. Open the Participants List
2. In the Groups column, select the pencil icon next to a participant's list of group memberships.
3. To add them to a new group, select the group(s) from the dropdown list.
4. To remove them from a group, select the X next to the group name.
5. Select the save icon to save the membership.

This screencast demonstrates how to create groups in Moodle.