moodle assignment separate groups

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Use Groups with an Assignment

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The assignment activity has specialized group settings to help facilitate collaborative work.

Before configuring groups in an assignment, make sure to create groups . If you are using groups in more than one assignment you may also want to create a grouping .

• Open the assignment you want to add groups to
• Click Edit settings from the “Assignment administration” menu.
• In the "Group submissions settings" section, set "Students submit in groups" to Yes to enable group submissions.
• Set "Require group to make submission" to Yes if you don't want to allow students not in a group to be able to submit (they will see a message reading: "You're not a member of any group; please contact your teacher").
• The "Require all group members submit" field will become available if the "Require students click submit button" field (in the "Submission settings" section") is set to Yes . If both of these are enabled, the assignment will not be counted as submitted until all members of the group have visited the assignment and clicked the submit button. This is useful if multiple students need to upload contributions. When one student has submitted, the other members of the group will be able to see who still has to submit.

• Use the "Grouping for student groups" field if you are using groups in more than one activity in Moodle. For example, you may have one set of groups for a collaborative project and another set for discussions forums. See the Create a Grouping guide for details on setting up groupings.
• Click Save and display or Save and return to course .
• When you open the assignment, you will see Moodle is only expecting submissions for each group, rather than for each student.

• When grading submissions, you will see an option to "Apply grades and feedback to entire group." If you leave this set to its default Yes , all members of the group will automatically receive the same grades and feedback.

Learning and Teaching

• Course and User Management

Managing Moodle Groups and Groupings

Published on: 17/09/2023 · Last updated on: 16/11/2023

Why use groups and groupings?

Groups and Groupings can be used to manage student cohorts, facilitate group work and/or restrict access to activities, resources or topics within a Moodle space. Some examples of how you might use them can be seen below:

• Managing Cohorts  – you can use groups to enable several student cohorts to use the same Moodle space. For example, you may want to keep the student groups separate if you are teaching the same unit twice in the same semester or if you are teaching the same unit in different modes (face to face or at a distance).
• Facilitating Group work  – groups can be used to create different ‘workspaces’ within a single Moodle activity. If, for example, you are running small group projects in your unit then each project team can be set up as a group. Adding a  single  forum, wiki or any other activity set to work in groups mode will provide a workspace for each team.
• Restricting access to resources or activities  – If you want an activity or resource to only be available to certain students then groups can be used to restrict access to resources or activities within a Moodle space. For example, if you set up a forum for students who have requested additional support, you can add those students to a group and apply restrictions so that the forum is only visible to their group. The support forum will not be seen by any other students.
• Managing extensions when anonymous/blind marking is enabled – You can create a group to include all those who have an extension and apply the extension details to the group. This avoids the necessity of having to identify users in order to apply anonymity.

Important note on retaining anonymity and maintaining student privacy :  It’s important to avoid naming the group ‘Extensions’ as all students can see Groups and their members from the Participants page. Instead use a generic Group A or Group 1 name.  Also, do not put student names in the name of the groups as this obviously breaks anonymity.

Creating groups

Groups can be found in Moodle by clicking on the  Participants  tab and then selecting  Groups  from the drop-down menu:

You can create empty groups either  manually  or  automatically  following a specific naming convention (e.g. Workshop Group {1,2,3…}). Students can be allocated to more than one group to accommodate using groups for different purposes within the same Moodle space (if you are using groups for different purposes it is recommended to organise the different groups into groupings ).

Populating groups

Once you have created empty groups you will need to allocate students to those groups. There are a number of ways to do this:

Manually add students to groups

• From the Participants tab in your Moodle space, select Groups from the drop-down menu.
• Click onto the group you want to populate and press  Add/remove users . 
• Search for and select relevant users and press the  Add  button.

Import group members from a .csv file

• Add the  Course group upload  block to your Moodle space (via the expandable block drawer located on the right-hand side).

• Click onto the  Import file page  link in the block and upload your .csv.  After uploading your CSV file, click on Update .  Then the page will display a table with the emails and groups imported from the CSV file. Click on Submit to complete the data upload.

Note:   To prepare your CSV file, you must create a UTF-8 document in Excel. In the spreadsheet, add the following headers in the first row:  email, group and grouping.  Then, populate all the information within each corresponding column. If you are not using the grouping function in your course, leave this column blank.

Allow students to  self-select  their groups via the Group Choice activity

With a large number of students, one way to populate groups is to have students allocate themselves to groups using the Group Choice Activity . The Teacher can specify the group membership (if needed) via a separate document, and ask the students to enrol themselves into these groups (you may wish to review/amend the Group Choices to make sure it is correct).

Note : There is an additional option for grouping students, via a Fair Allocation activity , which allows students to rate choices, and then based on their preferences, Moodle allocates them to a group.

Enabling group activities

Edit the relevant activity, and locate the Groups mode setting (found within the Common module settings section).

Apply the Group mode of your choice:

• Separate groups – Students can only see and interact with their group’s work.
• Visible groups – Students can see the contributions of other groups, however they cannot contribute outside of their own group.

Enabling either separate or visible groups on an assignment submission allows staff to filter the student submissions to see only those from a particular tutor group. With visible groups, students can see which other groups are doing the same activities as they are; with separate groups, they do not know that other groups are doing the same activities.

Restricting access to resources, activities or topics

Moodle content can be made available to participants based on selected conditions (such as a grade having been achieved or a date having been reached). Commonly however, content (resources, activities and topics) are restricted to a subset of the cohort using Groups.

• Create and populate your group(s)
• Edit the relevant resource, activity or topic and locate the Restrict Access setting.
• Press the Add Restriction button and select Group
• Select the group that needs to access the item

Note : The eye icon controls whether the item is visible (albeit unavailable) to non-group members. Clicking on the icon will put a line through the eye to indicate that it is entirely hidden from those participants who do not meet the specified criteria.

Whist a Group is a collection of users, a Grouping is simply a collection of Groups. By using Groupings, you can direct tasks at one or more groups in a course so that they can work together. Once you have created a grouping , you will be able to apply it to an activity or use it to apply restrictions to an activity, resource or topic .

Why would you use groupings?

Below are a few scenarios that showcase when groupings would be used.

Your course has 2 or more group assignments (i.e. Assignment 1 and Assignment 2). The students will be in different groups for the different assignments (Groups 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 for the first assignment, and Groups A, B, C, D, and E for the second assignment). So that Moodle knows which groups members to put together for which assignment you will need to allocate the correct groups to a grouping for the assignment.

When creating your assignment under Group submission settings you can now select the correct Grouping for student groups and be assured the right groups are we chosen for the activity.

Your Moodle space has two cohorts enrolled in it (ie. AB12345 and YZ67890). Along with a group assignment you want to restrict access to some of the topics based on cohort. In this situation you will want to create one grouping to house your cohort groups and another grouping to house your assignment groups.

Your Moodle space has multiple cohorts enrolled in it (ie. AB12345, ZA98765 and YZ67890). You want to create separate discussion forums for the different cohorts, as well as have a group assignment with groups that have mixed the students from the different cohorts. In this scenario you will want to create one grouping to house your discussion forum groups and another grouping to house your assignment groups.

Warning : If you do not put your groups into groupings and students belong to more than one group Moodle will not know which groups to use to allocate marks and feedback.

Related Articles

• Managing Unit Convenor/Teacher+ enrolments
• Moodle – resetting settings and activities
• Moodle Blocks
• Copying resources and activities between Moodle spaces
• Managing manual enrolments
• Reporting tools

Article Contents

Group Work in Moodle

• Moodle Basics Series

Learner-to-learner interactions can impact student success in a course and in their future endeavors. Group work encourages diverse perspectives, fosters creativity, and can lead to deep learning. It also helps prepare students for real-world situations where teamwork and communication are essential. If you have decided to include group work and group activities in your face-to-face or online course, Moodle can help simplify this integration. Moodle provides a technical solution for student submission of group work, online group discussion, and peer review. Register for this workshop or watch the recording if you are ready to get started with the technical details of how groups function in Moodle and how to set them up for different assignments. This guide will also walk through the key components of group work in Moodle and link to additional resources.

• How to get started
• Best practices
• Workshop Registration
• Workshop Recording

Getting started in Moodle

After you know the basic structure for a group project, you can set up the appropriate groups in Moodle. If you use more than one set of groups during a semester, then you will set up the project groups with students in them AND a “super-group” or grouping for the whole project. For example:

• Novel Analysis: Scarlett Letter
• Novel Analysis: The Bluest Eye
• Novel Analysis: 1984
• In Moodle, this means that the instructor will set up a grouping called “Novel Analysis Group Project Groups” and then 3 groups named Novel Analysis: Scarlett Letter, Novel Analysis: The Bluest Eye, and Novel Analysis: 1984

Learn more about setting up groups and groupings:

• Creating and Adding Users to Moodle Groups (random allocation of group members and manual allocation)
• Creating Groupings in Moodle
• You can use the group choice activity if you want students to choose their groups.

The instructor then needs to create the Moodle Assignment so that students can submit their work as a group.

• Enabling Group Submissions in Moodle Assignment
• Creating Moodle Assignments

Another useful way to use Moodle with groups is to use forums (discussion boards) for groups to be able to discuss, plan assignments, work together, and do group activities like debates.

• Name groups and groupings clearly so that students will know what groups they are in for discussion or projects
• Using Groups with Moodle Forums

NOTE: No students will remain assigned to groups when a course is copied to a new semester. In the new semester course, you will then need to delete and re-create groups to use the random/auto-creation or re-assign students to groups. If you use the group choice activity, then the new class of students will need to choose their groups.

Best practices for group work

• Building classroom community
• Learner-to-learner interactions = deeper learning and more engagement
• Group projects can be more complex projects with higher-order thinking skills
• Real-world or “soft” skills are important for work and life beyond content and courses
• More on evaluating group work
• Identify and communicate how you will give feedback to the teams on their work and progress
• Consider setting up forums or Google Chat spaces for group conversations outside of class
• Assign team roles so students know their responsibilities
• Use “version history” in Google Docs to check in on student contributions
• Integrate “team logs” so students can track how they are working together
• Consider adding team contracts to your projects
• Start with “low-stakes” group activities so students get to know each other and can work better in group assignments. Consider how you are creating groups to allow for variance but also relationship-building
• Groups and Groupings User Guide
• Peer Review with Digital Tools
• Group Work in Google Apps

Academic Technology

• Use groups and groupings
• Recipe Link

This guide describes what Moodle groups and groupings are, why they can be used and how to set them up.

In this guide:

Group modes

Creating groups, adding users to groups, creating groupings, adding groups to a grouping.

Groups are used to split students into groups to allow for multiple, distinct, instances of a single activity or to restrict access to specific sections of a Moodle space for example:

• You need students to work separately, but do not want to create multiple copies of an activity, resource or topics. For example, you want students to discuss a topic within their own groups within a single forum.
• You are sharing a Moodle space with other teachers and want to filter your own group of students' contributions to activities and the gradebook. For example, students have submitted an assignment and you want to just see the submissions of your students.
• You want to allocate a particular activity, resource or topic section to just one set of users while restricting it from others.

Each activity that supports group mode allows three options under the Common module settings of that activity:

• No groups - There are no groups. All students participate in the same version of activities and can, where appropriate, see each others' work.
• Visible Groups - Group members can view work from other groups but can only participate in their own group. For example, students can read, but not reply to, another group's forum posts.
• Separate Groups - Group members can only see activity within their own group.

Group modes provide the greatest benefits when using:

• Announcements: Announcements can be targeted to specific groups or groupings instead of to all participants.
• Discussion forums: Add a single forum to your Moodle space. Each group can only see (separate group mode) or participate in (visible group mode) discussion with members from their own group.
• Assignments: One member of a group submits on behalf of everyone. Each student in that group receives the same grade and feedback.  

  Before going through the steps of setting up Groups, you may want to consider Tabula Small Group sync (TSG) which allows the import of TSGs into the associated Moodle space. Departmental Learning Technologists or the Academic Technology team can set this up via Moodle-admin. If the Moodle module space is also set up to sync with MS Teams , then the TSGs can generate, via Moodle, matching Teams channels and Office 365 groups for controlling access to Streams video (for example). You may also want to consider Auto-create groups if you are using a consistent naming scheme. Students can also be allocated to groups at the same time, although somewhat randomly. Alternatively, use the Import and populate groups guide to create groups and add members by uploading a spreadsheet.

• Click the Participants tab of the course menu.
• Click the dropdown menu that says Enrolled users .
• Select Groups from the list.
• Group name - Give the group a name that the students will recognise or that makes sense in the context of the Moodle space.
• Group description - This is optional, but it may be useful to describe what this group is to be used for or who is a member of it in order to remind yourself and help distinguish between groups when there is a larger number.
• Enrolment key - Enter a password if you would like to use self-enrolment to add users to the space AND a group at the same time. See the self-enrolment section of the Enrolment methods and managing access permissions guide.
• New picture - This is optional but may be useful in distinguishing groups or in creating a group identity.
• Click the Save changes button to save the group. You will be returned to the group management page where you can add and remove users from groups.
• Select the group that you wish to edit. This will show you a list of the current members (if any).
• Click Add/remove users to add or remove participants . This will open the Add/remove users page.
• Select the course participants (on the right) that you would like to add to this group and click on Add in the centre.
• Click on Back to groups when you have added all the relevant members to the group. The page will update to show the students now in that group.
• Click through the groups on the left to see the list of participants allocated to each one.

Once you have created groups, you will be able to

• apply group modes to any compatible activities.
• restrict access to activities and sections by group.
• sync the groups with MS Teams to create teams or channels.

Students can be allocated to more than one group. You may be using groups for different purposes within the same Moodle space. For example, you would like students to engage with a discussion forum in seminar groups, but you also want them to work in different groups for an assignment and submit that as a group. In this case, you would need to use Groupings.

Groupings are sets of groups. In the above example, both the forum and the assignment activities would need to know which set of groups it is separating students into for the respective tasks. You would require a grouping called 'Seminar groups' and a grouping called 'Assignment groups', each containing the appropriate groups.

• Select Groupings from the list.
• Click the Create Grouping button.
• Enter the name of your grouping. This will be used to identify which grouping should access to the specific activities.
• Click Save Changes.

When you create a new grouping it will be empty. After creating a grouping, you will need to manually add groups.

• Follow steps 1 and 2 from Create a grouping above.
• From the edit column, click the   Show groups in grouping icon.
• On the add/remove groups page, select the group(s) you want to add to the grouping from the Potential members list.
• Click the Add arrow button that points towards the Existing members list.
• Click Back to groupings . 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. If you delete a grouping, the groups inside it will not be deleted.

Get started with Moodle

• Introduction to Moodle
• Visitor access to Moodle
• Academic year rollover

Manage your participants

• Enrolment methods and managing access permissions
• Roles and their functions in Moodle
• Import and populate groups

Structure your course

• Introduction to structuring your course
• Add a course header and other visual elements
• Restrict access to sections and activities

Add content to your course

• Introduction to adding content
• Moodle activity types
• Moodle resource types
• Import content from one Moodle space to another
• Restore deleted content
• Share Stream videos in Moodle
• Accessibility in Moodle
• Moodle Accessibility Quick Guide

Communicate and collaborate

• Introduction to communication and collaboration
• Moodle - Teams Synchonisation

Assessment and feedback

• Introduction to assessment and feedback
• Create a custom certificate
• Create and manage badges

Assignments

• Create an assignment activity
• Assignment submission types
• Assignment settings
• Create an assignment for group submission
• Use Turnitin for an assignment
• Create and grade a submission using a rubric
• Blind marking
• Allocate markers to specific submissions
• Hide or show grades and feedback
• STACK and CodeRunner on MoodleX
• Plan and set up a lesson

Tracking progress

• Completion tracking
• Reports and logs

Rollover, upgrades & known issues

• Known issues

Get started with Mahara

• Introduction to Mahara
• Login to Mahara
• Navigate the dashboard
• Search for people and content

Add reusable content (artefacts)

• Introduction to artefacts in Mahara
• Add personal information to your profile
• Add personal information using a CV
• Add files and images to Mahara
• Use plans and tasks for organisation
• Use journals and journal entries to record development

Create pages and add content

• Create a page
• Add content (artefacts) to a page
• Add written content using text and notes
• Add videos and external media
• Edit the page layout
• Remove content from a page

Structure and showcase your portfolio

• Use Tags in Mahara
• Create a page from Tags
• Create a collection
• Delete a page or collection
• Share a page or collection

Assessment in Mahara

• Copy a page or collection
• Comment and peer review in Mahara
• Create a template for others to work from
• Create a Mahara assignment in Moodle

Working with Groups

• Create a group and add members
• Manage a group homepage
• Share a group portfolio to group members

Manage your portfolio

• Save a snapshot of work using Timeline
• Export all or part of a portfolio
• Report and remove objectionable content
• Introduction to eStream
• Access your eStream content
• Uploading videos to eStream
• Edit videos in eStream
• Edit video thumbnail
• Uploading a closed captions (subtitles) file to eStream
• Add eStream videos to Mahara
• Sharing eStream videos to Moodle
• Sharing an eStream video with a link
• Setup a video assignment in Moodle
• Vevox at Warwick
• Information about Vevox for students
• Introduction to Echo360
• Getting started with Echo360 Lecture Capture
• Lecture Capture enabled spaces
• Schedule a lecture capture
• Getting started with Universal Capture (Personal)

Echo360 automated lecture capture

• Teaching modes in Lecture Capture-enabled rooms
• Use a lecture capture camera

Manage Echo360 content

• Access and manage Echo360 content
• Share Echo360 content
• Reuse Echo360 content
• Use collections to share recordings
• Upload external media to Echo360
• Edit Echo360 content
• Echo360 Automated Transcripts and Closed Captions
• Echo360s Active Learning Platform
• Echo360 Accessibility
• Echo360 Analytics
• Video assignments (via Moodle)

Student Module Feedback

• Introduction to Student Module Feedback
• 6 core questions
• Who can access responses?
• Step 1: Moodle template
• Step 2: Publish to students
• Step 3: Preview responses s
• Step 4: Reports
• Introduction to Padlet at Warwick

Get started with QMP

• Introduction to QMP
• The eAssessment lifecycle

Plan and design your assessment

• Plan your assessment
• Assessment types

Create question bank and questions

• Working with questions and questionbanks
• Question types
• Drag & drop
• Fill in blanks
• Select a blank
• Multiple response question (Right / Wrong)
• Pull-down list
• Multiple choice question
• Knowledge matrix

Build your assessment

• Assessment design

Deliver your assessment

• Verification / peer review
• Schedule an assessment
• Deliver to students

QMP Administration

• Unblock the user
• Reset password manually
• QMP Reports
• Filters in reports
• Assessment review

Other tools, guides and services

• Academic Technology Super User Guide
• Teaching in Teams Guides
• Use Microsoft Stream to create, stream and caption video
• Use Microsoft Bookings for office hours
• TurningPoint
• Plagiarism and Technology
• Use of software and services for teaching and learning
• Rapidmooc Green Screen Studios
• Podcasting in Rapidmooc Studio Westwood

Groups, Groupings and Cohorts In Moodle LMS — The Basics Updated

• By LMSPulse Staff
• June 29, 2020

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Updated on April 23 th , 2019

Moodle is based on the Social Constructionism pedagogy , according to which “ We learn particularly well from the act of creating or expressing something for others to see “ .

In layman’s terms: Our learning experiences become more valuable when they involve the exchange of knowledge among peers: Students asking and getting answers from other students. Students providing answers to one another, even teaching them what they know.

Moodle supports this kind of collaborative learning environment at its core. It was in fact designed under a social learning philosophy at the core. For many educators and instructional designers, this is an key difference from other LMS, for which pedagogical philosophies are an afterthought, if they are at all compatible. Many of the top LMS, however, have recently embraced popular approaches, perhaps most notably the idea of Social Learning , which could be seen as a modern trend that aims to grab the benefits of peer-based learning without the theoretical baggage of Social Constructionism.

Courses are the heart of the Moodle experience, as well as most LMS (and learning experiences at large). Courses contain activities and resources. Activities can build on the outcomes of earlier ones, including work made in teams or reviewed by peers. You can create groups in Moodle to support collaborative learning.

The benefits of social learning are obvious soon after implemented. Higher engagement and better performance can be some of them. But it’s not without its risks. Some students can rely excessively on their peers. And there’s the more prescient risk of facts, evidence and logical thinking becoming less of a priority versus engagement.

http://lmspulse.com/2018/does-swedens-failure-by-constructivism-spell-trouble-for-moodle/

In this article we will uncover the basics of Groups, Groupings and Cohorts in the context of Moodle. If you are new to the Moodle LMS looking to find your way in all these technical jargon, you are in the right place as well. We will give you a simple overview of the Groups, Groupings and Cohorts, and how you can effectively use them.

First of all, let’s start our way with the Groups.

You as a teacher can create groups to allocate a particular course activity, resource or a complete course section only to a specific group of students.  This will make the students collaborate with others and scaffold upon others learning.

Moodle supports three groups modes within the courses:

• No groups. are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community.
• Separate groups . Each group can only see their own group, others are invisible.
• Visible groups . Each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups in read only mode.

Groups are available for a complete course level, or on specific activities levels. Once you choose the group mode on a course level, it will be the default mode for all activities defined within that course.

You can create groups from Administration > Course administration > Users > Groups .  You can also create the groups automatically through “ Auto-create Groups “.

For more information about creating groups in Moodle course, check out the Moodle Docs .

Use groups if:

• 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.
• 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 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.

A grouping is a collection of groups within a course. Using groupings allows you to direct tasks at one or more groups in your course, so that they can work together on the tasks. Groupings were designed to allow a selection of different sets of groups in each activity. The key difference between Groups and Groupings is that a Group is a set of users whereas a Grouping is a set of groups.

Cohorts are site-wide or course category-wide groups. A cohort exists only for enrolment purposes, when group exists only within a course. The purpose of cohorts is to enable all members of the cohort to be easily enrolled in a course.

To create a new cohort, go to Administration > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Cohorts and click “Add”. Cohorts can be created in both the system (site-wide) context or in the course category context. You as an administrator can also upload multiple cohorts from a CSV (comma separated values) formatted text file in Administration > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Cohorts > Upload cohorts .

If you have any queries or any questions about Moodle Groups, Groupings and Cohort, do let us know in the comments section below. We’ll be happy to help out!

2 Responses

Thanks for this post – it is very useful. You may be interested in this screencast where I walk through teachers on allocating groups/groupings to particular assignment activities on Moodle https://youtu.be/McTL5bpEZDE

Hi Mark, Many thanks for sharing this awesome screencast.

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Moodle: How to Create Groups

Groups allow for filtering students so that work and grades can be accessed separately. Groups can be useful if:

• You have a course with multiple course sections that have independent projects or content
• You are co-teaching a course with other instructors and need to view your students grades separately
• You have group projects for which the groups need to collaborate using Moodle forums
• You need to communicate separately via Moodle Mail with different sections or groups

Note: Groups for course sections are automatically created.

To create a group in moodle.

• Repeat the above process until all groups are created and populated with members.  

Set Automatic Group Creation in Moodle

Alternatively, Moodle can automatically create groups and assign members to them, alleviating the need to do so manually. This can be particularly useful for large classes.

• To initiate this process, simply click the "Auto-create groups" button rather than the "Create group" button.   
• For the Naming Scheme, type the portion of the name to be repeated and then type an # or @ symbol to have Moodle passing consecutive numbers (Group 1, Group 2, Group 3...) or capital letters (Group A, Group B, Group C...) to the group names respectively. 
• Specify either the number of groups or the number of members per group and Moodle will allocate membership accordingly. 

Related GROK articles

• Moodle: How to Create Groupings
• Moodle: Groups and Groupings Overview

Support & Training

The Faculty Technology Center (FTC) provides Moodle support by email, by phone, or live through Zoom. For contact information, please see the article Faculty Technology Center: LSU Overview . To connect through Zoom and for further information on support services and training, see the LSU Online & Continuing Education Faculty Resources & Support page .

The FTC also provides just-in-time faculty training opportunities and recorded training sessions. Attending at least one training session for Moodle upgrades is highly recommended. For a comprehensive list of available workshops and recordings, please see the LSU Online & Continuing Education Technology Training page .

Documentation

Note: This documentation is for Moodle 2.7. For up-to-date documentation see Groups FAQ .

• Import groups
• Cohorts FAQ
• Groupings FAQ
• 1.1 What is the 'groups mode' setting?
• 1.2 What is the difference between a cohort and a group?
• 1.3 What is the 'force' setting?
• 1.4 Can I automatically add users to a group at the same time that I enroll them via a csv file?
• 1.5 How do I assign a teacher to a group? Can a teacher be in more than one group?
• 1.6 How do I restrict a teacher to view only information about the groups that they are in?
• 1.7 What determines whether students can see a teacher's profile?
• 1.8 I have two groups that meet on different days. Can I set up activities for different times for the two groups?
• 1.9 Can I use the same groups for more than one course?
• 1.10 Can a student be a member of more than one group?
• 1.11 If one student is in a group, do all students have to be in some group?
• 1.12 If I have several groups, can I make a specific activity or resource visible to just one of those groups?
• 1.13 Can I have one set of groups for Activity A and another set of groups for Activity B?
• 1.14 Is it possible to view all the groups in a course as a list to print out?
• 1.15 When I try to add a student, they are always added to the first group, whichever group I select?
• 1.16 How can I delete a group?
• 1.17 How can I import a list of students into a group?
• 1.18 How can I sort students automatically into groups during enrolment?
• 1.19 How can I change the sort order of the participants?
• 1.20 What is the difference between a group and a grouping?
• 1.21 What is an orphan group?
• 1.22 Is there any way to enable students to choose a group?
• 1.23 How can I view the participants list for just one group?
• 2.1 Which activity modules do NOT support group mode?
• 2.2 What happens if I switch an activity from being in non-groups mode to being in groups mode?
• 2.3 What happens if I change the groups for an activity in groups mode e.g. if I move a student from one group to another?
• 2.4 How do I post a message in a forum that only one group can see?
• 2.5 As a teacher I want to put the same post in each group's forum with students able to reply to that post. How can I do this?
• 2.6 How can I hide an activity/resource in the course from anyone who is not assigned to a group?

What is the 'groups mode' setting?

You can have several classes/groups working in a single course with different (or the same) teacher. Groups mode is a way of filtering the students so that work and grades can be accessed separately. See Groups for more information. There are three different groups modes – No groups, Separate Groups, Visible Groups. In ‘Separate groups’ mode, each group can only see their own group – other groups are invisible. In ‘Visible groups’ mode, each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups.

Teachers are normally able to see other teachers' groups's activities as well as their own unless the capability Capabilities/moodle/site:accessallgroups has been set to "prevent".

What is the difference between a cohort and a group?

A group exists only within a course. You might have a class 10B for example which you want to enrol in course 1 and course 2. The group would need to be created in both courses and its members enrolled separately in both courses. Cohorts are groups of users created by admin which can then be brought in "en masse" to courses. So if class 10B is created as a cohort by admin, then it can be selected in those courses where enrolment via cohort has been enabled. (For more information on creating and using cohorts, see here: Cohorts ) Once members of a cohort have been added to a course, they can be included in a group, either by using the "auto create groups" feature or by adding the members to an empty or pre-created group.

What is the 'force' setting?

If force is set to yes, then all activities are group activities. This overrides any settings for individual activities. If force is set to no, then activities are only group activities if they have been set to group mode. In this case, each activity requires to be set to group mode individually.

Can I automatically add users to a group at the same time that I enroll them via a csv file?

Yes. One of the optional field names that can be uploaded in the flat file is "group1, group2, etc". The group must be associated to the corresponding course and the course short name used in the field course1. If the group doesn't already exist then Moodle will create the group. Here is an example of a portion of a csv file that would enroll students into a group entitled 'Class A' within a course entitled 'Astro1'. (Note that you can assign students to groups using this file even if they are already enrolled in Moodle, as you can select to update the user details when uploading the file.)

How do I assign a teacher to a group? Can a teacher be in more than one group?

You can assign a teacher to a group in exactly the same way that you assign a student to a group.

How do I restrict a teacher to view only information about the groups that they are in?

For Separate Groups mode, the capability moodle/site:accessallgroups may be used to restrict access to all groups in a particular context. If this capability is removed from the teacher role (either within a course or globally if appropriate) then they will only see the students they teach when accessing the gradebook for example.

To do this for all teachers globally:

• Site administration>Users>Permissions>Define roles
• Select the editing teacher role;
• Click to edit the role
• Click the Show advanced button
• Type in the search box accessallgroups
• When it appears, click Prevent

To do this within a course:

• Course administration>Users>Permissions
• Type accessallgroups into the filter
• Click the X to remove from the editing teacher (Teacher) role.

What determines whether students can see a teacher's profile?

A student can see the profile of all teachers that are members of their group or that have edit rights.

I have two groups that meet on different days. Can I set up activities for different times for the two groups?

You can use Groupings to achieve this to some degree. If you are using Moodle's Quiz you can set different times for different groups using the Group override settings.

Can I use the same groups for more than one course?

Not directly, although there are some workarounds to accomplish this.

• Use the Import_groups Import tool to import a file with the groups and settings (though not memberships).
• Create the groups by import or manually with enrollment keys on them and give the students group enrolment keys to enrol themselves into the right group for each course.
• Admins and managers can enrol users in bulk via File Upload or Cohorts to include group membership.
• Make a template with the enrolments and groups and restore it to a new course with user data.
• Create a master course with all the students enrolled and in the correct groups, and then to make each of the courses a metacourse based on that master course. Note that metacourses do not carry over group enrolments. See the documentation on Metacourses .

Can a student be a member of more than one group?

Yes, a student can be in more than one group.

If one student is in a group, do all students have to be in some group?

No, a student does not have to belong to any group.

If I have several groups, can I make a specific activity or resource visible to just one of those groups?

You can organise groups into groupings , then assign an activity (or resource) to a particular grouping. If you want to show a resource (such as a file or folder) to only one group then Make sure that you admin has enabled "available for group members only" in Settings>Site administration>Development>Experimental and then see Available for group members only

In any version of Moodle you can make a forum post visible to just one group. You must first select that specific group from the dropdown and post the message to that group (rather than to "all participants")

Can I have one set of groups for Activity A and another set of groups for Activity B?

You can create two different groupings (a grouping is a set of groups), and assign different groupings to the two activities.

Is it possible to view all the groups in a course as a list to print out?

The groups overview page in Settings > Course administration > Users > Groups provides a table listing groups, group members and a user count.

When I try to add a student, they are always added to the first group, whichever group I select?

Make sure that the students name does not include any punctuation. There is also a workaround – give each group a temporary name at the start of the alphabet, put your students in the group and then rename the group.

How can I delete a group?

After clicking, "Groups" in Settings>Course administration>Users>Groups..

• Select the group that you want to delete.
• Click the "Delete selected group" button

How can I import a list of students into a group?

Please check Upload users .

How can I sort students automatically into groups during enrolment?

You can make use of enrolment keys . Set an enrolment key in Settings>Course administration>Users>Enrolment methods>Self enrolment (to enforce the enrolment key dialogue form when students enrol). That key is only for students who should not be in a group and to keep out any unwanted students. Then in Settings>Course administration>Users>Groups you create your groups and add a different enrolment key for each group. When a student enrols, using an enrolment key that is connected to a certain group, the student will automatically be part of that group.

How can I change the sort order of the participants?

The admin can change the "fullnamedisplay" variable which will affect the sort order of participants for the entire Moodle site. This can be found in the Site administration block under Security>Site Policies>Full name format. The default is First+Surname, with First, and Surname+First as options. Some language packs have other options.

What is the difference between a group and a grouping?

See Groups versus groupings forum post http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=131905 . A grouping can be thought of as a category of groups. A grouping is a meta group. Student membership to a "grouping" can only happen by their membership to a group that is associated with the grouping.

What is an orphan group?

An orphan group is a group that does not belong to any grouping.

Is there any way to enable students to choose a group?

There is a contributed module ChoiceGroup which will do this. See also on youtube: this screencast

How can I view the participants list for just one group?

For this, you need Groups mode switched ON at course level in Course settings.

Activity modules and groups

Different activity modules vary as to how they treat groups – some have better support for groups than others!

In general if you have questions about how an activity supports groups, you’re advised to post in the forum for the activity module, and not the groups forum.

Which activity modules do NOT support group mode?

All activity modules support the use of group mode apart from Glossary, Lesson, and SCORM.

What happens if I switch an activity from being in non-groups mode to being in groups mode?

This depends on the activity module in question.

For forums, posts made before the forum is put into groups mode are visible to all students after you have put the forum into group mode. However students cannot reply to these posts if they have no group (i.e. blank).

What happens if I change the groups for an activity in groups mode e.g. if I move a student from one group to another?

Again this depends on the activity module. You may find that grades or activity logs are lost, so check for the specific activity module first.

How do I post a message in a forum that only one group can see?

Before you click 'Add a new topic', you need to choose the group from the Separate groups drop-down menu at the top left.

As a teacher I want to put the same post in each group's forum with students able to reply to that post. How can I do this?

You need to post the same message into the forum for each group. There is currently no way to do this in one go if you want students to be able to reply to your post. If you don't mind students not being able to reply, then you can of course just post the message to all participants.

How can I hide an activity/resource in the course from anyone who is not assigned to a group?

You can use the Available for group members only experimental setting for allowing access to an activity/resource only to participants who are assigned to a group. If no participant on the course site is assigned to a group, ticking the 'Available for group members only' will effectively hide the activity/resource from everyone.

• Using Moodle Groups forum
• Moodle Forum Types and Group Mode MoodleBites video on YouTube