Using Groupings

Introduction

A grouping is a set of groups. Groupings enable students to be arranged into different sets of groups in activities. There are two options for groupings: to either (1) allow people from other groups to see but not participate in an activity or (2) to use the feature of “Available for group members only” which allows the activity to be shown to one group and not another.

Available for group members only is an experimental feature which may be enabled by an administrator in Settings > Site administration > Development > Experimental > Experimental settings.

Sections/Summary of the Steps

Before getting into the details of groupings, please note the following sections/steps.

• Section 1: Adding groups to a grouping
• Section 2: Selecting grouping in activities
• Section 3: Available for group members only

Section 1: Adding groups to a grouping

To add groups to a grouping:

1.  In your course, navigate to Administration block > Course administration > Users > Groups.

2.  Click the groupings tab.

3.  If necessary, create a new grouping by clicking the create grouping button on the groupings page.

4.  Click the "Show groups in grouping" people icon in the edit column.

5.  On the add/remove groups page that loads, select the group(s) you want to add to the grouping from the "Potential members" list.

6.  Click the arrow button that says ‘Add’ and points towards the "Existing members" list.

7.  Click the "Back to groupings" button. The group(s) you added to the grouping will now be listed in the table on the groupings page.

Existing groupings can be edited and/or deleted using the appropriate icons in the edit column of the table on the groupings page.

Section 2: Selecting grouping in activities

To use a particular grouping in an activity:

1.  In the "edit settings" page of the activity under the Common Module settings section, click the "Show advanced" button.

2.  Ensure that the ‘Group mode’ is set to separate or visible groups.

3.  Select the grouping from the grouping dropdown menu.

4.  Click the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the page.

Students will only participate in the activities they have been assigned to. Teachers will see the name of the grouping in brackets after the activity name on the course page. A count of activities assigned to each grouping is kept on the groupings page.

Please note that the grouping option appears by default only in activities that support group modes, if you enable ‘Available for group members only’ you will be able to assign resources to specific groups also.

Note: If a graded activity is assigned to a particular grouping only, it will still appear in the gradebook for all users unless gradebook categories are set up in a certain way (see Section 3).

Note: You cannot make an activity visible to only one group of students without first placing them into a grouping.

Section 3: Available for group members only

Available for group members only is an experimental feature which may be enabled by an administrator in Administration block > Site administration > Development > Experimental > Experimental settings. Check the box beside ‘Enable group members only’.

If enabled, access to activities can be restricted to group members only. This may result in an increased server load. In addition, gradebook categories must be set up in a certain way to ensure that activities are hidden from non-group members.

How to set up the gradebook for 'Avaliable for group members only'

A workaround suggested by moodle.org:

1. Put all graded activity assigned to a particular grouping into one category.
2. Set the aggregation for the category to maximum grade.
3. Hide and exclude the individual categories for each student.