Why would I want to use Groups?

You are a teacher in a course where you have several classes and you want to filter your activities and gradebook so you only see one class at a time. Or maybe you are a teacher sharing a course with other teachers and you want to filter your activities and gradebook so you don’t see the students from your colleagues’ classes. You may want to allocate a particular activity, resource or topic section to just one class or set of users and you don’t want others to see it. Finally, you may simply want to have your larger class working in smaller groups on a regular basis.

What are "groupings" for? Can't I just use groups?

Groupings are used to restrict access to an activity or resource to a subset of groups. With groups, all classes or groups can see all tasks. With groupings you can decide which group can see which activity. To assign an activity, or release a resource, to a select group of students, the group must belong to a grouping. If, for example, you have one set of groups for and assignment and a different set of groups for forums you will need to create two separate groupings.

How do I randomly assign students into groups?

Before proceeding, first consider this question. Do you want each of your created groups to be visible or invisible to each other? If they are visible to each other than all groups see all content. To create groups that are visible to each other follow this first set of instructions. If you would like to create groups that are visible to each other, follow this first set of instructions. If you would like to create groups that are invisible to each other also start with this first set of instructions and then continue on with the second set of instructions.

In your ‘Administration’ block go to ‘Course Administration’ then click on ‘Users’.

Then click on ‘Groups’.

Next, look for and click on ‘Auto-create groups’.

The ‘Naming scheme’ has two options. ‘Group @’ will use a naming scheme with letters of the alphabet, ‘Group #’ will create groups that are numbered.  Groups can be created by the number of groups or the number of members per group. 

For example, if your naming scheme is “Group @”, and you have 20 members in your class, you can choose 5 as the number of groups, Moodle will create 4 groups named A, B, C, D, and disperse your students randomly into those groups.

You may also choose to add students alphabetically by first or last name, or by student ID number. If you select members per group, you can select ‘Prevent last small group’ to keep groups from forming a small group. Moodle will distribute the uneven group to the other groups. Click ‘Preview’ if you want to see who is in each of the random groups. Click ‘Submit’ to create the groups and move on.

To create groups that are invisible to each other follow this second set of instructions. Continue on where you left off from the first set of instructions. You should now be back at the Groups screen and be able to see the groups Moodle randomly created for you. Now click on the ‘Groupings’ tab.

Next click on ‘Create grouping’.

Now name your grouping and then click ‘Save changes’.

Repeat this process until you have all the specific groupings you will need. In our example below, we have chosen to create two groupings using activity names. The intention is to have only one group see the Forum and not the Wiki and the other group to see the Wiki and not the Forum. Once you have all your groupings named, pick one of them and then click on the ‘Show groups in grouping’ symbol.

You will now see two columns. The column on the right-hand side will contain your groups. Click on the group you want to move into this grouping and then click the ‘Add’ button. Finally, click the ‘Back to groupings’ button.

Repeat this process until each of your groupings has been assigned groups.

How can I post to a specific group in a "separate groups" forum?

Within the Forum, select the group from the ‘All participants’ drop-down list at the top of the page. Click ‘Add a new discussion topic’.

Complete the ‘Your new discussion topic’ page and post the topic to the forum.  Only the group you have selected will be able to view the post. On the Forum page, the group at which a group-specific post was targeted displays in the ‘Group’ column.

How should I configure my notifications?

How you and your course participants receive messages depends on how you configure your notification settings for messages.  To configure them, you must go to the ‘Settings’ block which currently is a roundabout process in Moodle. First, click on your name in the top righthand corner.

Next, click on 'Edit profile'.

Now click on 'Preferences'.

If you want to make minor changes to how you receive messages from forum posts then click on 'Forum preferences' under 'User account'.

You can now make adjustments to receive posts as they are posted or receive a digest once per day with all posts from that day.

Finally, if you wan to make more in depth changes to the messages you receive, click on 'Messaging' under 'User account' on the 'Preferences' screen.

You should now see this screen and can select what you do and do not want to receive notifications about.

How do I stop students from continuing to post to a forum discussion, but still read what has already been posted?

Remove students' permissions to start a new discussion and reply.  Click on your Forum, then scroll down to the ‘Administration’ block, and click ‘Permissions’. 

Now remove student role from ‘mod/forum:replypost’ and ‘mod/forum:startdiscussion’ by clicking on the ‘X’ beside ‘Student’ for each. If you want to add these permissions back later, contact the E-Learning Office to do so.

My email inbox is crowded with notifications about Moodle forum posts and assignment submissions. How do I make it stop?

You can reconfigure your personal notification settings so that you only receive one daily email from Moodle, rather than individual notifications from every tool, about every submission. 

I am using inquiry-based learning for a course. One assessment task requires students to keep a "research notebook". How can I create a private space for individual students, in Moodle?

You would be better served to do something like this through your UPEI Google Drive.

How can I create a private space where tutors for my course can communicate?

You can create a private tutor-interaction space in two ways.  First way, set up a forum within the relevant course and give it a meaningful title, (e.g., "Tutor Space"). Now make sure that editing is turned on . To make the Forum invisible, go to the course home page and then to where the Forum is located. Click on ’Edit’ and then click the ‘Hide’ icon . 

The title of the forum will now be in a gray shade of text. Next, you need to add your tutors to that forum so click on ‘Edit’ again and this time select ‘Assign roles’.

Since we are talking about tutors, they will not be giving grades. They can therefore be assigned the role of non-editing teacher, so click on ‘Non-editing teacher’.

Next, select the tutors from the column. Click on each tutor’s name to highlight it and then click ‘Add’. Repeat this process until you have all of your tutors added and appearing in the left-hand column. Your private forum is now ready for your tutors (and you) to use.

My students aren't signing up to the class forum. How can I get them to do so?

You can tweak the forum’s settings so that an email will be sent to each student every time a new post is made to the forum. To do that, make sure editing is turned on. Go to where your forum is located and click ‘Edit’, then click ‘Edit Settings’.

Scroll down to find ‘Subscription and tracking’ and from the ‘Subscription mode’ drop down menu select ‘Forced subscription’. Your students will now automatically receive this forum.

If students complain that forum post notifications are becoming a nuisance, suggest that they reconfigure their notifications by editing the ‘Email digest type’ in their profile, so that they receive all forum posts in a single daily email, rather than getting an email for each post submitted.

I've accidentally deleted my Latest Announcements! What can I do to get it back?

Anything you delete will appear in your ‘Recycle bin’ for seven days.  The ‘Recycle bin’ is located at the bottom of the ‘Administration’ block.