Managing groups

On this page:

• Overview
• Accessing groups
• Creating a group
• Editing a group
• Deleting a group

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Overview

Groups are subsets of participants for a given site. Groups are not preloaded with official course data, and can therefore be created by the instructor. Groups are useful to organize study groups, project teams, and other non-official subsets of site participants.

Note: When combining sections into a parent site, groups from the original sections will not be brought forward. However, each section behaves like a group on the parent site, i.e., group-aware tools recognize each section as a group.

You can use groups with the following tools:

• Announcements: Post announcements for a group.
  
  
• Assignments: Post assignments for a group. However, you cannot add assignments with group access into the Gradebook.
  
  
• Forums: Assign forum and topic permissions for groups; see Controlling access to Forums.
  
  
• Messages: Send private messages to a group.
  
  
• Resources: Allow specific access to files and folders for a group.
  
  
• Schedule: Schedule events for specific groups only.
  
  
• Site Info: Manage your groups.
  
  
• Tests & Quizzes: Allow specific access to a test or survey for a group by using the Assessments Released To setting.

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Accessing groups

You can access groups with the Site Info and Worksite Setup tools.

To access groups with the Site Info tool:

1. In your site's menubar, click Site Info.
   
   
2. Click Manage Groups.

To access groups with the Worksite Setup tool:

1. Click My Workspace.
   
   
2. From the menubar, click Worksite Setup.
   
   
3. Check the box next to the course for which you wish to manage groups, and from the top, click Edit.
   
   
4. Click Manage Groups.

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Creating a group

To create a new group:

1. Access the groups area of your site (see above).
   
   
2. Click Create New Group.
   
   
3. In the "Title" field, enter a title for your group (e.g., Project team 1). You may also add a text description.
   
   
4. From the window on the left, select a site participant to add to the group, and then click > . Repeat this step until you've added all the members you wish to the group. To select more than one member at a time, hold down the Ctrl key (in Windows) or the Command key (in Mac OS X), and select the members you wish to add.

   Alternatively, click >> to move all site participants to the right-hand window, select any participants you do not want in the group, and click < to remove them.

5. When you're finished, click Add.

To create a group containing all users with a specific role, click Auto Groups, check the role(s) that you want to create groups for, and then click Update.

Note: It is not possible to create a new group based on existing group (i.e., duplicate an existing group).

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Editing a group

To edit a group:

1. Access the groups area of your site (see above).
   
   
2. Next to the group title, click Edit.
   
   
3. You may revise the "Title" and "Description" fields. You may also add or remove group members as described above.
   
   
4. When you're finished, click Update.

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Deleting a group

To delete a group:

1. Access the groups area of your site (see above).
   
   
2. Next to the group you wish to remove, check the box under Remove.
   
   
3. Click Remove Checked.
   
   
4. To confirm removal, click Delete Groups.