You should get some information on groups and groupings in the Moodle docs if you search. A group is a collection of students in your moodle course that can have a teacher assigned to them and then when assignments are set the gradebook can be filtered to only show that group rather than everyone on the course all together. This is useful if you have several classes and/or several teachers sharing a course. Groupings is what you use if you want your classes not to be able to see what tasks the other classes are doing. With groups, all groups can see all tasks even if you don't want a certain class(group) to do a task. With groupings you can decide which class (grouping) can see which activity. Here is a video:
Great video. thanks for sharing this. I will definitely pass along to others and add to my "resources". So why did you choose "Visible" groups instead of "Separate" groups if you wanted the assignment hidden from other groupings? Maybe when you use groupings the visible vs separate does not matter? Just curious.
I really love groupings but was VERY disappointed to discover that the activities assigned to a grouping are hidden on the homepage but NOT in the gradebook. If you have a lot of groups this really makes a mess of the gradebook. Have you found a way around this? I know this is posted in the tracker but curious what strategies you might use?
I really love groupings but was VERY disappointed to discover that the activities assigned to a grouping are hidden on the homepage but NOT in the gradebook. If you have a lot of groups this really makes a mess of the gradebook. Have you found a way around this? I know this is posted in the tracker but curious what strategies you might use?
Hi Deb. I don't think it makes any difference to groupings whether you use visible or separate groups as my understanding of that is (and do bear in mind I make a lot of this up as I go along! 
) that separate v visible only really matters for students in that if the groups are separate, they don;t know which other groups are doing the same assigment as them. If the groups are visible they do see which other groups are doing the same work as them. But in groupings they have no idea anyway so it is irrelevant - I presume.
) that separate v visible only really matters for students in that if the groups are separate, they don;t know which other groups are doing the same assigment as them. If the groups are visible they do see which other groups are doing the same work as them. But in groupings they have no idea anyway so it is irrelevant - I presume.
Okay. That makes sense that Groupings trumps all. So any input on the Gradebook issue? Have you had a problem with this?
No bright ideas with the gradebook issue - I suppose different teachers/groups could have separate categories for their assignments so you could find them easier but not in terms of hiding them, no 
.
.
Just so odd that the activity/resource is hidden every where in the course but then appears in the gradebook. Well hopefully this will be addressed in 2.0. Yes categories is the best option for dealing with this, although it makes it challenging since I have a weekly format and try and put each week's activities in a separate folder so students can quickly check to see what is due each week. I do not separate out assignments by "type". Oh well...back to the drawing board. Thanks for your comments!
Hi Deb
I thought I would add to Mary's very useful information about groups and groupings with an extra way we use Groupings.
We have several courses where the students are split into groups for different discussions. The group dynamics change for different topics so each students is associated with several groups, eg
Students will be in several groups, one for each topic (eg student1 belongs to group 1 & 6 etc).
We apply the appropriate grouping to the forums so that only the relevant groups are displayed in the dropdown.
Cheers
Teresa
I thought I would add to Mary's very useful information about groups and groupings with an extra way we use Groupings.
We have several courses where the students are split into groups for different discussions. The group dynamics change for different topics so each students is associated with several groups, eg
- Topic One has groups 1,2,3 & 4 (these groups are in Topic One Grouping)
- Topic Two has groups 5,6,7,8 (these are in Topic Two Grouping)
- etc
We apply the appropriate grouping to the forums so that only the relevant groups are displayed in the dropdown.
Cheers
Teresa
Thanks - that is a great way to use groups. While you mention "only the relevant groups are displayed in the dropdown" the problem is that all the graded activities for all groups will show up in the gradebook. But if you discussions are not graded that would not be a problem.
This usage also shows another difference between groups and groupings. As i understand it (and have used myself), students can be in only one group while they can be in multiple groupings. For instance, I run a theatre company and use Moodle as a way to set up a cast page where they can share ideas about the production, post character analysis, etc. Once a year we do a night of one acts and most performers are involved in multiple plays. By using groupings, each performer can see the information for all of the plays that they are in but none of the other plays. It helps by limiting the number of activities they can see but still allowing them to view all information pertinent to them. This would not have been possible with groups because while performer A might be in play 1, 2 and 3; performer B might be in 1, 4 and 5 and performer C in play 3, 5, and 6. By using groupings, everybody gets a "customized" interface.
Congratulations Allen, what an imaginative use of Moodle!!
Certainly does open a new perspective for me, I can tell you. This will certainly go onto my list of "Things your school can do with Moodle" argument. Thank you.
Certainly does open a new perspective for me, I can tell you. This will certainly go onto my list of "Things your school can do with Moodle" argument. Thank you.
I too think this is a great use of groups and groupings Allen. I would like to clarify, however; that students can be a member of more than one group. For example, our teachers have students grouped by class period. This allows them to sort assignment submissions by class. They also place students into smaller working groups. Any of these groups can be placed into a grouping. The ability to add students to multiple groups, and use those groups in various groupings adds even more flexibility to Moodle.
Rob
Rob
Nice use of Moodle Allan! As I understand it though, a student can be a member of more than one Group... it's quite flexible in this way.
Thank you for your excellent video instruction on groups and grouping and 'cloaking' an activity.
I notice that I am not able to cloak any Hotpotatoes activity to be available for a specific grouping of students. It would be wonderful to have this grouping feature available for my courses. I am running Moodle install 1.9.7+
Can you help me with this problem? Is this a current design feature of the Hotpot module?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
I notice that I am not able to cloak any Hotpotatoes activity to be available for a specific grouping of students. It would be wonderful to have this grouping feature available for my courses. I am running Moodle install 1.9.7+
Can you help me with this problem? Is this a current design feature of the Hotpot module?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Hi Chick - I hadn't investigate this before but yes, unless I am mistaken, if I look at my hotpotates quiz settings there is only the option to set groups but not groupings. However - Hotpotatoes has an excellent successor which is available now called Quizport (or soon, TaskChain) which enables you to use series of Hotpotatoes and also other quiz types - AND you can set groupings. I'd recommend you check it out - it offers a lot of potential and is very customisable - and you get your hotpotatoes available to groupings!
Chick,
as I understand it, you would like the Hot Potatoes module to be aware of groupings in the same that the Resource module does, is that right?
As far as I can tell, only the Resource module lets you select a grouping in this way. The other modules, Assignment, Quiz, HotPot only let you choose a group. At this point in time, I don't think I could change HotPot in Moodle 1.9 to work different from the other modules, because to do so maybe confusing for users who are accustomed to how the other modules work, and how the HotPot has behaved until now.
Well, that's my opinion based on my understanding. Does it fit with what you know?
Gordon
as I understand it, you would like the Hot Potatoes module to be aware of groupings in the same that the Resource module does, is that right?
As far as I can tell, only the Resource module lets you select a grouping in this way. The other modules, Assignment, Quiz, HotPot only let you choose a group. At this point in time, I don't think I could change HotPot in Moodle 1.9 to work different from the other modules, because to do so maybe confusing for users who are accustomed to how the other modules work, and how the HotPot has behaved until now.
Well, that's my opinion based on my understanding. Does it fit with what you know?
Gordon
Gordon; my understanding is that you can select a grouping from within the assignment settings and the quiz settings similar to the resource module in "common module settings" but I don't see the groupings option like that for HotPotot
Aha! thanks Mary. You made me look again. I see now that the setting is in "Advanced" section of the standard settings, so I had not noticed it there before.
Chick, I have added groupings awareness to the HotPot module, in Moodle 1.9. See the "mod_form.php" entry on the following page:
The modified scripts will be available from the Moodle CVS repository and from the Moodle downloads page in due course. Usually it takes a day or so for modified scripts to appear in the latest version of Moodle.
thanks for bringing this to my attention 
Gordon
Gordon, Mary, Rob, Allen, and Colin,
Thank you for looking at the grouping feature for Hotpot activities. We are excited to see the benefits it will bring.
Chick
Thank you for looking at the grouping feature for Hotpot activities. We are excited to see the benefits it will bring.
Chick
Ver Helpful! I just went through this process on the phone with someone the other day. It is much more understandable now that I see this! Thank you
Upgraded to Moodle 2.0.2. Have created Groups and Groupings according to Mary's video.
Separate Groups
Groupings set to the correct grouping
Visible
When I test the Grouping settings by logging in as a student, the two different wikis that were added are both visible to the student. The student account has access to editing in both wikis. Not certain why this is happening. What am I missing?
Which version is it exactly? I have an idea there was a bug with groupings a few weeks ago but this has since been fixed.
Hi Mary,
It is Version 2.0.2. I thought that this was going to fix the problem too.
Here is my current situation:
I have students in multiple groups
Students John, Chris, Michele and Kip are in Groups Covina USD & Covina
Students Abe, Donna, Mike and Irene are in Pomona USD & Pomona
I have 2 Groupings - Covina HS & Pomona HS
I have assigned Covina to Grouping Covina HS and assigned Pomona to Grouping Pomona HS.
My problem is that when logging in using a test student account for Grouping Covina HS (a member of both the Covina USD & Covina Groups), I can still see and edit in Grouping Pomona HS wiki (this wiki activity has grouping limited to Pomona HS). My understanding is that this should not happen if I select the wiki settings (please see attached screen shot).
Thanks,
Jeff
Hi Mary,
I found the answer. i was not logged in with enough privileges. Once I used the uber admin log in credentials, I was able to access the Experimental settings. There I enable the Enable group members only setting. Problem solved.
No worries,
Jeff
I hope I'm not coming too late to this discussion.
But I am wondering, what is the point, if any, of assigning an activity to a grouping and then NOT ticking 'Available to Group Members Only'?
Does this do something really subtly clever, or does it just write the grouping name next to the activity name (for the benefit of the teachers) and then do nothing else?
If assigning to a grouping without ticking the box is as pointless as it seems to me at the moment (and I am more than ready to stand corrected on this), then what is the point of having the tick-box in the first place (and why, if it must be there, is it unticked by default?).
But I am wondering, what is the point, if any, of assigning an activity to a grouping and then NOT ticking 'Available to Group Members Only'?
Does this do something really subtly clever, or does it just write the grouping name next to the activity name (for the benefit of the teachers) and then do nothing else?
If assigning to a grouping without ticking the box is as pointless as it seems to me at the moment (and I am more than ready to stand corrected on this), then what is the point of having the tick-box in the first place (and why, if it must be there, is it unticked by default?).
Interesting questions. Apparently, the grouping is effective only when the box is ticked. You can't really assign a grouping without ticking the box, although you can tick the box, assign a grouping and then untick the box, but then unticking effectively disables the grouping assignment. The latter may still be useful as a preparatory setup in cases where you may want to restrict access to a certain activity for a short time (I actually have such cases when I want to allow students to submit unsubmitted quizzes after the due date; I make the quiz available to a certain grouping which include a certain group, I add the student to the group and then I can reopen the quiz without risking that other students will take the opportunity to access it).
Ticking the box without assigning a grouping, however, is a different issue and in fact a feature which is concealed by an unfortunate organization of the settings in that section. You see, the feature is:
Available for group members only
and not
Available for grouping members only
This means that if you tick the box the activity or resource will be available only to students who are assigned to a group. Then if you also assign a grouping the groups that will count will be only those which belong to the grouping.
This feature is actually an additional condition on the 'visible groups' and 'separate groups' modes. These two modes have a default 'all participants' group such that students can see the activity/resource even if they do not belong to any group (b/c by default they belong to the virtual 'all participants' group). This condition cancels the virtual 'all participants' group to the effect that one has to be explicitly assigned to a group to gain access to the activity/resource.
The organization is unfortunate because it makes it seem as if the checkbox is related only to grouping, and so the fact that it is a 'groups' setting may be completely missed.
(Mary, if you see this post, this relates to what we discussed elsewhere about the 'Force groups' course setting)
Ticking the box without assigning a grouping, however, is a different issue and in fact a feature which is concealed by an unfortunate organization of the settings in that section. You see, the feature is:
Available for group members only
and not
Available for grouping members only
This means that if you tick the box the activity or resource will be available only to students who are assigned to a group. Then if you also assign a grouping the groups that will count will be only those which belong to the grouping.
This feature is actually an additional condition on the 'visible groups' and 'separate groups' modes. These two modes have a default 'all participants' group such that students can see the activity/resource even if they do not belong to any group (b/c by default they belong to the virtual 'all participants' group). This condition cancels the virtual 'all participants' group to the effect that one has to be explicitly assigned to a group to gain access to the activity/resource.
The organization is unfortunate because it makes it seem as if the checkbox is related only to grouping, and so the fact that it is a 'groups' setting may be completely missed.
(Mary, if you see this post, this relates to what we discussed elsewhere about the 'Force groups' course setting)
OK, that makes reasonable sense, even if it is potentially a bit confusing.
I had never really considered using groupings, until I had a request to allow them on a new course module I created. Now I realise that there are so many situations in which I wish I had known about them (especially when there are two classes, with different teachers and different deadlines...)
I had never really considered using groupings, until I had a request to allow them on a new course module I created. Now I realise that there are so many situations in which I wish I had known about them (especially when there are two classes, with different teachers and different deadlines...)
Great video Mary- thanks!
I have managed to set up my groups and grouping, but wanted to ask is there a way to hide the whole topic area from other groups?
I have hidden the acitvities in each area, but still the introduction bit of text for each topic is visible - I notice Mary has nothing in that area in her video. Is it possible to hide this too?
Many thanks!
I have managed to set up my groups and grouping, but wanted to ask is there a way to hide the whole topic area from other groups?
I have hidden the acitvities in each area, but still the introduction bit of text for each topic is visible - I notice Mary has nothing in that area in her video. Is it possible to hide this too?
Many thanks!
How about having nothing in the topic summary but putting any text you want a certain grouping to see in a label and then assigning that label to a certain grouping?
Is there any way to get activity reports by Groups?