Groups

The Groups tool in Bright­space lets you divide your class into small­er teams. You can cre­ate groups your­self, have Bright­space sort stu­dents auto­mat­i­cal­ly or have stu­dents self-enrol. Groups can be con­nect­ed to Assign­ments and Dis­cus­sions so stu­dents can work togeth­er in their own space. This makes it eas­i­er to man­age group projects, keep things orga­nized, and grade group work.

Planning Ahead

Before cre­at­ing groups in your Bright­space course, take a few min­utes to think through how you want them struc­tured. Your approach may vary depend­ing on:

  • Whether your course enrol­ment has sta­bi­lized
  • If you plan to hand-pick groups or let Bright­space dis­trib­ute stu­dents
  • Whether you’d like stu­dents to select their own group

If you cre­ate groups before your class list is final, make sure you turn on Auto-Enrol New Users, this set­ting auto­mat­i­cal­ly adds new stu­dents to a group. This helps ensure that stu­dents who reg­is­ter late are not left out and saves you from hav­ing to add them one at a time.

It’s often eas­i­er to set up groups after the first week or two of the term, once enrol­ment has set­tled. That way, you’ll know how many stu­dents are in your course and can cre­ate groups that are more even­ly bal­anced.

Watch the fol­low­ing 11:45 minute video for an overview on Groups.

Creating Groups

  1. Click Tools > Groups on the course navbar.
  2. Click New Cat­e­go­ry and give it a name. You can also enter a descrip­tion if you want (this will be vis­i­ble to stu­dents).
  3. Choose Enrol­ment Type. Open the accor­dion below to see Enrol­ment Type descrip­tions.
  4. Edit set­tings — these will depend on what Enrol­ment Type you choose. For exam­ple, you may be asked to spec­i­fy the max­i­mum num­ber of mem­bers in each group or the num­ber of groups you want to cre­ate.
  5. Add a Group Pre­fix (e.g., Group# — Bright­space will then num­ber each group with this pre­fix. Group#1, Group#2, etc.)
  6. Click Save.

There are sev­en dif­fer­ent enrol­ment types avail­able in the Groups tool:

  1. # of Groups No Auto Enrol­ments: Spec­i­fy a num­ber of groups and man­u­al­ly enroll any num­ber of learn­ers into these groups. 
  2. Groups of #: Each group is filled with the spec­i­fied num­ber of learn­ers. When one group is full, the sys­tem auto­mat­i­cal­ly cre­ates anoth­er group. Depend­ing on class enrol­ment and group size, this can result in one group with sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er users than oth­er groups. 
  3. # of Groups: Learn­ers are auto­mat­i­cal­ly enrolled as even­ly as pos­si­ble across a spec­i­fied num­ber of groups. 
  4. Groups of # — Self Enrol­ment: Learn­ers man­u­al­ly enroll them­selves into a group. Group mem­ber­ship is capped at a num­ber set by the instruc­tor. A new group is not cre­at­ed until the cur­rent groups are full. 
  5. # of Groups — Self Enrol­ment: Learn­ers man­u­al­ly enroll them­selves in one of a spec­i­fied num­ber of groups. 
  6. # of Groups, Capac­i­ty of # — Self Enrol­ment: Learn­ers man­u­al­ly enroll them­selves in one of a spec­i­fied num­ber of groups. Each group has a max­i­mum num­ber of users. Once a group has reached its enrol­ment max­i­mum, no more stu­dents can choose that group. 
  7. Sin­gle user, mem­ber-spe­cif­ic groups: This will cre­ate one group for each learn­er in your course and auto­mat­i­cal­ly name the group with the first and last name of the learn­er. 

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