CCLE - Groups and Groupings
Most activities and resources are intended to be accessible to all enrolled members of a course. Sometimes, however, there is reason to want to limit access to a subset of those members. For example, a teaching assistant may wish to set up individual discussion forums for each section she teaches or for a set of groups (a grouping) of students working together on a project. CCLE allows instructors to create groups of students within a CCLE site. These groups can be used for organization purposes and to limit access to select activities and resources.
Creation of groups
Scroll down the administration block along the left side of a CCLE course page and click Admin panel. A new screen will appear.
On this new screen, select “Groups” under “Users & groups.” A new screen will appear.
Click Create group. A new screen will appear.
Give the group a name and description.
At this stage, you are only creating the group, not assigning individuals to it.
Click Save Changes to return to the groups page.
Select the group just created in the column on the left.
Click Add/remove users below the column on the right. A new screen will appear.
Add the desired users to the group by selecting users on the right, then clicking on the Add button in the middle.
The box on the left shows users in the group.
The box on the right shows all individuals in the course, organized by role.
Click Back to groups to return to the “Groups” screen.
Repeat these steps for any other group that needs to be created.
Groupings and Grouping Creation
Sometimes, multiple groups are closely related. It is possible to create a collection of Groups called a Grouping. Groupings allow instructors to more easily grant multiple groups access to activities and resources on the course site. If the instructor adds related Groups to a single Grouping, they can grant access based on that Grouping instead of granting access individually to each Group.
To create a grouping:
Navigate to the “Groups” page, as described above.
Click the “Groupings” tab at the top of the main groups page. A new screen will appear.
Click Create grouping. A new screen will appear.
Give the grouping a name and description.
Click Save changes. You will return to the “Groupings” screen.
Click the blue and white icon of a person next to the grouping you created. A new screen will appear.
If you mouse over this icon, it will display “Show groups in grouping.”
Add one or more groups to the grouping by selecting groups in the right hand column and clicking the Add button in the middle.
Click Back to groupings to return to the “Groupings” page.
Repeat these steps for each desired Grouping.
Restricting Access to a Group or Grouping
Create the activity or resource that will have restricted access, if needed.
With Editing Mode turned on, click on “Edit” next to the item and select “Edit settings.” A new screen will appear.
Navigate to the “Restrict Access” section.
Click Add restriction.
By default, most things created in a CCLE page will have a restriction to the grouping Private Course Material, a grouping in which all participants are included by default.
In the box that pops up, choose either Group or Grouping, depending on which you want to use to restrict access.
This will put a new option in the Restrict Access section.
Click on the drop-down menu labeled “Choose…” and choose the group or grouping to which you want to restrict access.
(Optional) To hide the activity or resource completely from those outside the selected group or grouping, click the eye icon to the left of the restriction until it has a slash through it. Otherwise, the link will appear but not be selectable by those outside the group or grouping.
(Forums only) Expand the “Common module settings” subheading and select the desired grouping from the “Grouping” drop-down menu.
Further Comments
Course sites with official sections (not collaboration sites) should come with groups for sections premade. This will allow for easy grouping of students into section-restricted forums. See below for an example.