This refers to Moodle 3.11  from August 2022 onwards

Moodle Help & Support 

An overview of how to use Groups and Groupings effectively

Groups and Groupings can be a good way to restrict access to resources, activities and sections within the module. Examples where they can be used effectively include:

  • managing lab report submissions within Science and Engineering.
  • sorting assignments for grading when there are multiple graders, each with a selection of students.
  • allowing students to work on an assignment in a group together and submit the final result on behalf of all of them.
  • break up online activities for a large cohort into manageable groups.

Are groups enabled already?

If Groups has been applied to an activity the following icons will be displayed next to the Edit dropdown when editing is turned on.

No groups

Separate groups

 Visible groups

Assessment

Both Turnitin and Moodle assignments can use Groups and Groupings to aid marking, for example if there is more than one marker, each assigned to a group of students. This can be turned on in the Common module settings within the settings of the dropbox. There are two settings, 'visible groups' and 'separate groups', it does not matter which you choose in the case of an assignment dropbox as you are not restricting access, only aiding marking.

Moodle assignments

If you organise students into groups to work on collaborative projects with the idea of a single submission e.g. a joint presentation to be submitted, then Moodle assignments is ideal. You can set up the dropbox so one group member submits and then all other students in a group have to click 'submit' to confirm they're happy with the submission or only one member of the group needs to submit on behalf of all members without official confirmation.

Turnitin assignments

Groups and Groupings can only be used to aid marking in Turnitin dropboxes. However, within Peermark (a peer assessment activity that can be incorporated into a dropbox) you can force assignment distribution. This could be a useful approach if you have a small cohort of students and want one group to assess another group's submissions, especially if they've researched different topics, as it could be a good way to get students to learn from their peers about something they have not researched, while also learning how to evaluate.

Collaboration

Using Groups and Groupings in a Forum, Wiki or Chat can aid a more organised collaboration. This can be useful for you as well as the students as it enables you to keep track to conversations and progress with specific pieces of work set for different groups.  

This method creates ONE activity but each GROUP sees it differently. To create multiple activities, one for each group, see below.

Forum

This is a good tool if you want to promote peer support within the module by breaking the students into smaller groups promoting social cohesion which will result in better discussions in class. If 'visible groups' is set within the Forum setting students will be able to see all conversations but only participate in their own. If 'separate groups' has been set students will only be able to view 'all participants' posts but not interact, and view and participate in discussions for their own group, they will not be able to view other group's discussions or posts. This can be useful if you have multiple teaching staff responsible for teaching a particular group of students on a module as it ensures they only collaborate with their own group of students rather than bombarding all students will irrelevant information or important information being lost in the overall discussion.  If you are using 'separate groups' for a forum, in addition to collaborating with different groups of students, you could also use it as an alternative to the Announcements forum (the default forum in all modules) as the 'all participants' option works in the same way, it allows you to send out one-way communication.

Wiki

This is a good tool if a group of students need to work together to produce a single piece of work as it acts like a live document, everyone in the group can go in and make changes to what others have written in the aim of producing a collaborative piece of work.  In this instance it would be better to set the wiki as 'separate groups' initially so each group can't see what the others are doing and then once the work has been submitted you could change the wiki setting to 'visible groups' so they can view the progress of all the other groups in order to compare their own. This would be similar to a peer assessment approach but without the assessment aspect, more for self-reflection.

Chat

This is a good tool if you want to have a separate space for each group of students to have live discussions with you and each other about a piece of work at set times. This tool works best with Groupings rather than groups as then you can set up a few Chat activities that will only be visible by that group of students, this will also allow you to set each discussion to only open at certain times for different groups.

Managing access to resources and activities

This method creates a separate resource or activity for EACH group, visible only to them.

This can be useful if you only want certain groups to have access to certain resources, activities or whole sections (topics down the centre) within a module. This can be set in the Common module settings for a resource and Restrict access in the settings for a section.


Moodle Help & Support 

 

This refers to Moodle 3.11 from August 2022 onwards

  • How to restrict access to a resource or activity or section in Moodle
  • To remove a restriction
  • To edit a restriction

    • How to restrict access to a resource or activity or section in Moodle

    It is possible to restrict access to resources or activities or to sections in a variety of ways.

    • from a specific start date
    • to a specific end date
    • only visible if students have achieved a required grade in a previous activity
    • visibility is based on the value in a field in the user profile (for example course code)
    • restrict to a particular group of students

    Add restriction window

    To restrict access

    1. Click on the 'Turn editing on' button on the top right of the Moodle page
    2. Either c
      1. Create a new activity/ resource OR
      2. Click on Edit on an existing activity and select 'Edit settings' from the dropdown
    3. On the 'Settings' page for an activity or resource, click to open the "Restrict access" section
    4. Click on the 'Add restriction...' button
    5. Select from 
      1. 'Activity completion' (only available if activity completion is set up on your module) - allows you to limit visibility only to those students who have completed (or not completed) another previous activity
      2. 'Date' - a To or From date and time can be set from when or until which the item is visible to students
      3. 'Grade' - a way to limit visibility only to those who have achieved a specified grade or range of grades in a previous activity such as a quiz, or in the module total
      4. 'Group' (only available if groups are enabled in your module) - make the item visible to a specified group of students (you need to create the groups first)
      5. 'User profile' - limit visibility to those with a particular value in a user profile fiel;d (e.g., a Course Code, or Country)
      6. 'Restriction set' - Add a set of nested restrictions to apply complex logic.
    6. Click on the required restriction button and you will return to the "Restrict access" section where further choices can be made.
    7. Save the changes
    8. Click the 'Turn editing off' when you have finished editing


    To remove a restriction

    1. Click on the 'Turn editing on' button on the top right of the Moodle page
    2. Either c
      1. Create a new activity/ resource OR
      2. Click on Edit on an existing activity and select 'Edit settings' from the dropdown
    3. On the 'Settings' page for an activity or resource, click to open the "Restrict access" section
    4. At the end of the line relating to the restriction you wish to remove, click the X

    To edit a restriction

    Delete the restriction and recreate it as described above.


    For more information see: How to set up groups and groupings




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