Groups FAQ

General

What is the 'groups mode' setting?

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.

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.

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. In 1.5, a teacher cannot be in more than one group. This has changed in 1.6.

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

In Moodle 1.6, for Separate Groups mode, teachers can see all groups, whilst non-editing teachers can only see the groups of which they are a member.

In Moodle 1.7 onwards, for Separate Groups mode, the capability moodle/site:accessallgroups may be used to restrict access to all groups in a particular context.

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?

Not currently. You can create a separate course for each class using backup and restore, though you do then have to update both courses.

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

Not currently. There are two possible workarounds for this. The first is to give the students group enrolment keys, so they enrol themselves into the right group for each course. The other alternative is to 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 (although the metacourse documentation claims that metacourses do not preserve groups, this seems to have been used by some people). See the documentation on Metacourses.

Can a student be a member of more than one group? Is it possible to have students not in any group?

In 1.5, a student cannot be a member of more than one group. This has changed in 1.6 - a student can be in more than one group. A student does not need to be in a group.

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

Template:Moodle 1.9In Moodle 1.9 onwards, you can organise groups into groupings, then assign an activity (or resource) to a particular grouping.

In any version of Moodle you can make a forum post visible to just one group.

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

Template:Moodle 1.9In Moodle 1.9 onwards, you can create two different groupings (a grouping is a set of groups), and assign different groupings to the two activities.

What is the difference between a Group and a Grouping?

In a nutshell, groupings are clusters of groups. The effects/results of each can be summarized like this:

To place students into workgroups, to work separately on the same activity (such as group A, B, and C all discussing in a forum on technology) they just need to be put into groups. This first level allows them to have workgroups, with either visible work or completely separate work in the same activity.

To have students working on different activities, not even seeing activities for other groups (such as group A writing a report, group B using a forum, and group C creating a wiki), you need to put them in groups first, such as group A, B, and C, THEN you must place each group in their own grouping, such as Grouping A containing Group A, Grouping B containing group B, etcetera. The only way you can make an entire activity available for only one set of students is to pass through groups to the next level: groupings.

The advantage of this structure is you can have really creative combinations of groups and groupings. For example, maybe groups A and B are supposed to write in a forum, and groups C and D are supposed to make a wiki. You might create a Forum Grouping, containing groups A and B, and a Wiki Grouping, containing groups C and D. Then, you make the Wiki activity available to only the Wiki grouping, but you still have your two Wiki sub-groups, as well - C and D - for an added layer of distinction. This can be especially useful if you have many different topics for projects paired with different activity types.

Another way to get creative is to give yourself lots of flexibility. For example, on a staff site, you might have four groups: Teachers, Secretaries, Aides, and Special Ed Staff. If you have some forms that go to Teachers and Aides, and some activities that go only to Teachers, and some that go only to Special Ed Staff and Aides, you could create your four groups, then groupings like this:

1. Special Education (containing only the SpecEd group)
2. Teachers (containing only the Teacher group)
3. Secretaries (containing only the Secretaries group)
4. Aides (containing only the Aides group)
5. Teachers and Aides (containing the Teacher Group and the Aide group)
6. Aides and Special Education (containing the Aide group and the Special Ed group)
7. etc...

...then assign your activities, documents, or resources to JUST the people that need them.

The possibilities are endless, once you wrap your mind around the structure.

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

In Moodle 1.9 onwards, the groups overview page 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 in Moodle 1.9?

Template:Moodle 1.9In Moodle 1.9, follow these steps.

After clicking, "Groups" in the Administration block,

1. Select the group that you want to delete.
2. Click "Show members for group." (Then the "Delete selected group" button will become active.)
3. Now you can 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 on the course settings page (to enforce the enrolment key dialogue form when students enrol). That key is only for students who should not be in a group. On the screen for administering groups, you create your groups and by editing the settings of each group, you can 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.

TIP: Make sure that the first letter for each group enrolment key is the same as the course settings enrolment key. If a student makes a mistake typing in the enrolment key, they are provided with the first letter of the course settings enrolment key as a hint.

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 are groupings?

Template:Moodle 1.9Groupings, in Moodle 1.9 onwards, are collections of groups. Groups normally exist within a grouping, but it is possible to create a group which doesn't belong to any grouping.

What is an orphan group?

An orphan group (in Moodle 1.9 onwards) is simply a group that doesn't belong to any grouping.

Is it possible to create site-wide groups?

Site-wide groups are not yet available in Moodle. The Using Moodle forum discussion Site Wide Groups contains possible work-arounds.

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

Not in the standard Moodle 1.9 build, but there are hacks which people have described in the forums.

Activity modules and groups

Different activity modules vary as to how they treat groups – some have better support for groups than others! For groups in forums, see the section on group mode in Adding/editing a forum.

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.

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.