About Groups in Brightspace
- have students submit a group project for a group grade.
- group students for class discussions on the discussion board.
- with class-wide prompts or group-specific prompts
- create individual groups to replicate journals.
- limit views in Grades based upon groups.
- limit student access to Announcements, Content & Activities, Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes.
You can include group assignments, lockers, or discussions as part of the group setup. See the Additional Options settings below.
Students can be a member of multiple groups in a course.
Create Groups
First, create a Category
The group category is the organizing purpose of the group. For instance, in a class of 40 students, there might have 8 “discussion” groups with 5 members each, but then also have 20 “project” groups with 2 people each. You would create a category for each type of group
Create Group Category and Set Up Groups
Navigate to “Course Tools” on the Brightspace menu, select “Groups” to open the Manage Groups dashboard. Select “New Category“.
Type in a name for the category. You have the option to add a description for the groups. In addition, there are a number of options for “Enrollment Types:”
- # of Groups – No Auto Enrollments – set the number of groups, and the instructor will manually assign students
- Groups of # – set the group capacity, i.e. “groups of 4”
- # of Groups – set a group limit, i.e. “7 groups total” and students will be randomly distributed by Brightspace
- Groups of # – Self Enrollment – set the group capacity and allow students to self-enroll
- # of Groups, Capacity of # – Self Enrollment – set the group capacity and number of groups, and allow students to self-enroll
- Single user, member-specific groups – set up groups of 1
Depending on which Enrollment Type you chose, you will have fields to fill in regarding the number of groups, number of users, and other enrollment-related options.
The Brightspace Community site offers more explanation of the group types.
View and Modify Enrollments
Modify group enrollments
- Go to the Groups page and choose the group category from “View Categories” (if you have more than one category)
- Click the dropdown arrow next to the category name and choose “Enroll Users”
- Here you can see your class and all the groups, so you can modify students’ groups by changing which column is checked for them.
View group enrollments
To see all members of a group:
- Go to Course Tools > Groups
- Click on the number, under the Members column, to see who is enrolled
To identify which group (or groups) an individual student is in:
- Go to Grades & Feedback > Classlist
- Click the drop down arrow next to the student’s name and choose “View Groups”
If you created a self-enrollment group, you can create a link to the group in Content, Announcements or anywhere you have the HTML Editor to add Quick Links so students can enroll in the group of their choosing.
Create Assignments, Quizzes, or Discussions for Groups
For Assignments (and Quizzes)
In some cases you want each group to have a different assignment. In other cases, you might want all groups to get the same assignment to work on and submit as a group where any member of a group can submit files to a group folder. Group members may be given a common grade by default, but you can edit individual grades in the Grade Book.
For a unique assignment for each group:
- Click Course Tools and choose either Assignments or Quizzes
- Create/edit the specific assignment
- Click Availability Dates & Conditions on the right
- Click Add Release Condition > Create New
- Select Condition Type
- Choose Classlist > Group Enrollment
- Select the group from the dropdown list and click “Create”
To create one assignment that all groups will do:
- Edit the Assignment
- Click Submission & Completion on the right
- Select “Group Assignment”
- Choose the correct group category (e.g. “project groups” or whatever category you created when creating the groups in the group tool)
In the Discussion Tool
- Create or edit a Forum and give it a title
- Click on the Restriction tab
- Scroll down to Release Conditions and select Create & Attach
- View the dropdown for Select Condition Type
- Go to Classlist > Group enrollment
- Select either a group category or an individual group
- Click Create
- Choose your other forum settings and save and close
Grading by Group
Within each tool’s grade page, you can filter by groups to isolate just those students
- In the grading page for each tool, where it defaults to User (all students), choose Groups and click “Apply”
- Next, select the individual group and click “Apply” again
- To revert back to the entire class, just click “User” and “Apply”
For the Grade Book, the same filter option exists. In Discussion, you would click “Assess Topic” from the Topic dropdown menu, and then filter the same way as above.