Question about the purpose of Grouping Assignments/Quizzes in 2.8

Question about the purpose of Grouping Assignments/Quizzes in 2.8

by John Provasnik -
Number of replies: 2
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Hi. I was wondering what purpose Grouping assignments/quizzes serves in Moodle 2.8 (if we ignore the ability to restrict access to an assignment/quiz based on Group membership in the Restrict Access field). I noticed 2.8 moves the "available to group members only" check box out of common module settings and into restrict access. That surprised me because I assumed Grouping an activity and then restricting access to an activity was the only purpose of grouping an assignment.

I know that using Groups enables teachers to filter their gradebooks and assignments by Group, but if students can complete any grouped assignment (again, ignoring the ability to restrict access), then I was wondering what purpose it serves on its own without restricting access.

My school has a set way of using groupings, so I'm only familiar with how we use it and I'm curious to hear from others how they use the Grouping with assignments/quizzes feature (if not simply to restrict access to that assignment/quiz).

Thanks in advance for taking the time to give your input!

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In reply to John Provasnik

Re: Question about the purpose of Grouping Assignments/Quizzes in 2.8

by Rob Johnson -

Setting assignment or quiz to visible or separate groups allows the teacher to sort submissions or quiz results by those groups.  In my school district, teachers have students grouped by class period.  When viewing quiz results, they can filter a specific class period instead of looking at all classes lumped together.

As far as why that setting was moved, hopefully another Moodler will shed light on it.

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In reply to Rob Johnson

Re: Question about the purpose of Grouping Assignments/Quizzes in 2.8

by John Provasnik -
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Makes sense--I see that filtering option in the Assignment grading screen now. It's amazing what you forget about when you don't use something. So we create 4 groups--one for each quarter--to restrict access to assignments throughout the year. This way, we dont have to add quarter cutoff dates to each assignment/quiz (it's a pain to update the dates each year, but I did come across a plug in that may change all those dates with ease).. It's also just easier for us to dump the student list into a new quarter 'group.' But of course 'period' groups make sense. 

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