Moodle groups allow academics to group course participants together. Groups are stored in groupings which act as a folder to easily refer to and use multiple groups for individual tasks.
Once groups and groupings have been allocated. Academics can assign specific resources or activities to these groups to build
- Group assessment tasks where students work together
- Resources that can only be viewed by particular groups
- Filtering of assessment results to tutorials
Create a group
There are 3 ways to build groups,
- Manually create each group: Gives the most control over who goes into what group but can be time-consuming, best used for smaller (<100) cohorts or when making only a few groups.
- Auto-create groups: Automatically make a number of groups with students assigned randomly, alphabetically, or not assigned at all.
- Import groups: Assign students to groups in a .CSV file and upload it into Moodle. This is a quicker option than manually creating groups.
Create groups manually
Groups are created individually and students must be assigned manually. This is best used when quickly making a few groups or when there is a small cohort (<100).
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Auto-create groups
Groups are created automatically following rules that are set by the instructor. Students can be assigned randomly, alphabetically, or by tutorial class (class ID). This is fast and best used when making larger amounts of groups or with bigger cohorts.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Import groups
Students can be assigned to groups in a .csv file and uploaded into Moodle. Moodle will assign students to new/existing groups based on this .csv file, creating new groups when needed. This is best used when there are stricter or manual requirements for which student goes into each group.
Some group files may experience issues when uploading, if this happens refer to the FAQ.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Groups Based on Tutorials
Student groups can be automatically assigned and synced to Moodle course based on the tutorials students select when enrolling via MyUNSW. Students can change their tutorial groups at the beginning of the term, usually up to the census date. Academics then need to 'refresh' the Moodle course groups to update the list of groups in the course. It is important not to change the generated groups names or 'Class IDs' as this will stop the groups from updating when auto create on class ID is rerun.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Create a grouping
A grouping is a set of groups. Groupings enable groups of students to be arranged into different sets of groups for each activity. Use groupings to restrict access to an activity or resource to a subset of students. To assign an activity, or release a resource, to a select group of students, the group must belong to a grouping.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Release a resource to a grouping
Resources ranging from assignments to a page can be released to groupings of students. This can be particularly useful to release a makeup exam to students due to special circumstances. Alternatively, it can be used to release different case studies for each grouping for a particular assessment.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Assign an activity to a grouping
Group activities can be created by assigning a grouping to it in the Common module settings section of the activity settings page. Activities will behave differently when groups are enabled in this way, e.g. a forum becomes a group forum. Some activities like Assignment have additional settings to change how this works too.
There are 2 main types of group modes:
- Separate, group members can only see their own group's work
- Visible, enables students to view other groups' work but still have an area to perform their own group tasks
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
View, export, and annotate a class list
Course class lists can be downloaded alongside group information for students.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Can I make groups based on tutorials?
You can auto-create groups using Class ID based on student enrolments. Class ID's come from Timetabling and reflect what lectures/tutorials/laboratories that a student is enrolled in. To do this, simply select 'Class ID' in the 'Auto create based on' dropdown when auto-creating groups (please note, this feature is only available in award courses).
For instructions on auto-creating groups, please view the Auto-create groups section.
My CSV group import isn't working.
"The 'Username' is not a valid field name" error that appears when doing a csv group import due to a few main reasons. To avoid this issue:
1. Use valid column headings such as "userid" and group without any spaces, e.g.
userid, group
z1234567, Group1
2. The csv file must be saved as 'Comma separated values' there are other formats such as CSV UTF-8 which will give an invalid "fieldname" error.
3. There must be no extra spaces or empty rows/columns in the CSV file. To check the file, it can be opened in a text editor (such as Notepad) to see if extra spaces are displayed (it will show as a comma).
How do I see groups in the Gradebook?
The Gradebook can be filtered by groups in courses that have a group mode.
Courses with group mode set to 'Separate/Visible groups' will have it set as the default for all new activities created in the course.
1. In the course settings, set 'Group mode' to either 'Separate/Visible groups'
2. Select a group to filter toward the top of the Gradebook