Groups and Groupings allow instructors to divide participants into smaller subsets, for example section groups or project groups. 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.
4. Give the group a name.
5. Click Save Changes.
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.
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.
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 created.
- Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
- In the Administration block, click Users, then click Groups.
- Click Auto-create groups.
- Edit the settings.
- Click Submit.
- 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.
- Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
- In the Administration block, click Users, then click Groups.
- Highlight the group whose name you wish to change.
- Click Edit group settings.
- 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.
- 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
- Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
- In the Administration block, click on Users, then click Groups.
- Click on the Groupings tab.
- Click on Create Grouping.
- Name the grouping (e.g. "Joe's Discussion Sections").
- Click Save changes.
- Edit the Grouping by clicking the shirted people icon on the right side under edit.
- Highlight any Group you want to add to the grouping and then click Add.
- Click Back to Groupings
Repeat these steps to create as many Groupings as you would like.
Restrict access to resources based on groups
Instructors have the ability to restrict access to activities to set groups. The settings for all activities have both a Common Module Settings area and a Restrict Access area. Each handles the restriction of a resource in a different way.
Changing group settings through Common Module Settings
The following are the settings available in the Common Module Settings area for activities in GauchoSpace.
- Visible: If the assignment is hidden, students will not see the assignment. This is the same as using the "Hide/Show" eye icon on your course page.
- Group mode: Select separate groups if you want to set as a restricted group assignment, this way groups members can only see the work of their group, or select visible groups, which allows non-group members to see work of other students. Using the Group Mode will only set how students submit and view assignments by their groups. Students will see the assignments for all groups, but won't be able to submit or post unless they are in the group.
- Grouping: If you have groupings, you can select a grouping here to assign the activity to a specific grouping, which is a group of groups.
Change Group Settings through Restrict Access
Restrict access can allow an instructor to make an activity available based on a conditions. Conditions can be a date, a grade, or group or grouping membership. You can also combine restrictions and set whether the student must or must not meet the condition. This method of restricting access allows you to hide activities from users who don't meet the set condition by clicking the eye icon for your restriction. To learn more about setting up restrictions,visit How can I make an activity or resource only available to particular students?