08. Using groups Contents

8.  Using groups 

Within a Moodle course, participants (students, etc.) can be grouped using the group feature.

Topics, activities and resources can be assigned to each group to perform group work.

8.1 Creating a group 

Creating a new group 

Creating a group

To open the screen for creating a group, open the block drawer and click on "Groups". 

Click "Create group". 

The group settings screen will be displayed.

1. Enter a group name.

2. Click "Save changes".

Registering users to a group 

Click "Save changes" on the previous screen to return to the group settings screen.

Click "Add/remove users".

The "Add/remove users" screen will be displayed.

Course participants are displayed in the "Potential members" box. Select the users you wish to add to the group and click the "Add" button.

The selected users will be moved from the "Potential members" box to the "Group members" box.

After moving the user(s) you wish to add to the group to the "Group members" box, click the "Back to groups" button to return to the previous screen. 

When you return to the groups screen, you will see that users have been registered to the groups you have registered.

Repeat the above steps for each necessary group, registering users to each group.

8.2  Applying groups to activities and resources 

Groups that can be used for activities such as forums and tasks, resources such as files and pages, or topics where their contents are placed, can be specified in the "Module common settings" and "Usage restrictions" of the topic, activity or resource.

In this section, we will assume that the groups are applied to "Forums".

How to apply groups to activities and resources (when making a forum available only to Group A users) 

Set the group mode 

1. Click "Edit mode" to launch edit mode.

2. Click on the menu icon next to the activity (in this case, the forum) for which you wish to configure group settings.

3. Select "Edit settings" from the drop-down menu that appears.

Module common settings

Set the "Group mode" field.
Select
No group mode

2. Click on the menu icon next to the activity (in this case, the forum) for which you wish to configure group settings.

3. Select "Edit settings" from the drop-down menu that appears. 

Usage restriction settings

Click the "Access restrictions" field.

Usage restriction settings

Click the "Add restriction..." field.

A dialog box reading "Add restrictions" will be displayed, so select "Group". 

4. The group settings field will be added to the access restriction settings screen.

5. Click the "Choose..." field.

6. Select "Group A" from the list of available groups.

7. Specify visibility to participants outside the group specified in 6. 

  Eye icon: This forum will be grayed out to participants outside of Group A
  Slashed eye icon: This forum will be hidden to participants outside of Group A

Click "Save and return to course" when you have finished adjusting the settings.

Visibility to students

A message reading "This content is unavailable to those not meeting the following conditions: Belonging to Group A" is displayed.

8.Reference information 

Group registration keys

When using the group feature, you can set a "group registration key" (to distinguish this from a course registration key, we will call it a "group registration key").

A group registration key, like a course registration key, is used by participants to self-register for a course. When a participant joins a course, he/she is also registered as a group member. 

For example, in a situation where a participant is asked to enter a registration key when first joining a course, the group to which the participant belongs is automatically classified as below according to the type of registration key entered:

1. "No Group" when the registration key set at the time of course setup is entered.

2. "Group A" when the group registration key set for Group A is entered.

3. "Group B" when the group registration key set for Group B is entered. 

Displaying the create a group screen

There is another way to open the create a group screen besides the method described in 8.1.

Select "Participants" from the menu tab on the course screen. 

Click on the "Enrolled users" box shown to display a drop-down menu.

Select "Groups".

This will bring up the create a group screen. 

Applying groups to topics

You can also assign topics to groups using the same method described in "Applying groups to activities and resources".