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Gauchospace Groups and Groupings

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Groups and Groupings allow instructors to divide participants into smaller subsets. For example, these can be section groups, project groups, or groups for a collective assignment. As an instructor, you can use Groups and Groupings to allow some students to work together or to restrict Activities and Resources to specific groups of participants in your course.

Groups

Groups are collections of participants within a course. A group can include any subset of participants, from zero to all participants. Functionally, Groups allow you to segregate your participants within an Activity. That is, within the same Activity, participants can work with other members of their Group, but not with people outside their Group. Contributions to the Activity from members of other Groups will be invisible or read-only, depending on your settings.

Groups are either A) created by the instructor, B) created by GOLD and assigned to a Teaching Assistant, or C) created automatically when two course rosters are merged. For TA section groups, GauchoSpace will automatically add an assigned TA's name and the date/time/location to a section group based on information in STAR. If a TA is added after the course has been created, they will be assigned to their section and their name will be added to that group. For grading purposes, the TAs can sort submitted assignments by sections/groups. If a TA's name is not listed with the group, you can edit the group name to make that change. 

 

Create a group

1. Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.

2. In the Administration block, click Users, then click Groups.

3. Click Create Group.

Click_Create_Group.jpg

4. Give the group a name.

5. Click Save Changes.

Give_the_Group_a_Name_Save_Changes.png

6. Repeat steps 3-5 until you have created all desired groups.

 

Add users to a group

1. In the Groups area, find the group into which you would like to add users, and single-click on that group to highlight it.

2. Click Add/remove users button.

Highlight_desired_group.png

3. In the next window, you will see all of the course participants (students, TAs and instructors) in the Potential members  list. Click on a name to highlight it.

Tip: To select multiple users from the Potential Members list press the CTRL (PC) or the Command (Mac) button on your keyboard as you click each person's name.

If a user is already in a group, it will show that in the Selected user's membership section, to the right of the Potential members box.

4. Click the Add button to add selected users to the group.

Select_potential_members.png

5. Repeat for all groups until you have put every student into a group.

 

Auto-create a group

Using the Auto-create group option can be useful for grading purposes and group projects. This will let GauchoSpace randomly sort your students into groups either based off of number of students in each group or number of groups you want to be created.

To get started:

  1. Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
  2. In the Administration block, click Users, then click Groups.
  3. Click Auto-create groups.
  4. On the new page, you will be able to change settings. Follow along with the markings in the screenshot below to adjust appropriate settings. 

Auto-create settings:

  1. Using option "1," you can define the naming scheme of the group to be named as a letter series or a number series. If "@" is used then groups will be named with the letter suffixes (A,B,C, etc). If "#" is used then groups will with number suffixes (1,2,3...etc).
  2. Using Option "2," you can specify whether you want to create a specific number of groups or whether you want to create groups with specific number of people in it. 
  3. Option "3" lets you specify the actual number of groups or number of people in the group based on what you have selected in Option "2."autocreate_infographic_2.png
  4. Option "4" lets you specify if you want only students in the group. In most cases, you should leave this setting as is. 
  5. You can specify if you want members to be selected from a specific grouping only in Option "5" or selected from a specific group (such as a section group) only in Option "6." In many cases, TAs might want to create groups within their sections. In such cases, make sure to specify that section group in Option "6."
  6. By checking Option "7," groups will be created in such a way that members are evenly distributed. For example, with 14 students in a class, you specify you want groups of 4. If this option is unchecked, it will create 3 groups of 4 and one group of 2 students (thus creating uneven-sized groups). But if that option is checked, it will create 2 groups of 5 students and one group of 4, thus creating more even-sized groups. 
  7. Click Submit.autocreate_infographic.png
  8. On the next screen you will see your new groups and the members of the groups on the right.

Change a group name

This includes groups automatically created for TA sections and merged rosters.

  1. Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
  2. In the Administration block, click Users, then click Groups.
  3. Highlight the group whose name you wish to change.
  4. Click Edit group settings.
  5. Change the group name as desired. Note: You can change this name to whatever you would like, but make sure you remove the brackets around the TA's name or the group name will revert back to what it was. 
  6. At the bottom of the page, click Save changes.

Groupings

Groupings are collections of Groups ("groups of groups"). Functionally, the Groupings setting allows you to segregate participants between Activities or Resources. That is, you may allocate an entire Activity or Resource to an individual Grouping (e.g. Groups A & C), making it invisible or read-only to other Groupings. In certain cases, an Instructor or Teaching Assistant may wish to make certain resources only accessible to particular students in the course (e.g. their discussion sections). By using Groupings you can make a resource only visible to those in that particular Grouping.

Once your groups are in Groupings, you can restrict resources to a particular Grouping and prevent those not in that Grouping from seeing it. All resources and activities can be restricted to particular Groupings in the settings menu of that resource by clicking in the Common module settings section, then choosing a particular Grouping. If you select the check-box that says Available for group members only, this will mean only those in this Grouping can even see the resource or activity. If this is unchecked, others will see the resource or activity exists but will not be able to access it.

 

Create a grouping

  1. Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
  2. In the Administration block, click on Users, then click Groups.
  3. Click on the Groupings tab.
  4. Click on Create Grouping.
  5. Name the grouping (e.g. "Joe's Discussion Sections").
  6. Click Save changes.
  7. Edit the Grouping by clicking the shirted people icon on the right side under edit.
  8. Highlight any Group you want to add to the grouping and then click Add.
  9. Click Back to Groupings

Repeat these steps to create as many Groupings as you would like.

 

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