Creating a group category

Use categories to organize and manage related groups. For example, you can have a category for Assignment 1, Assignment 2, Seminars, Remedial Help, and Book Reviews.

If you want to create a new set of groups, you need to set up a category and create restricted work areas for the groups first.

Create a category

1. On the Manage Groups page, click New Category.
2. Enter a Category Name and Description.
3. Select an Enrollment Type from the drop-down list. See Enrollment types for more information.
4. Depending on the chosen Enrollment Type, enter the Number of Groups to create, or the Number of Users per group.
5. Select Auto-Enroll New Users if you want to automatically enroll users to groups.
6. Select Randomize users in Groups if you want to randomly place users in groups. If this option is not chosen, users are placed alphabetically based on the classlist.
7. Select Set Up Discussion Areas if you want to associate discussion areas with the groups in the category.
8. Select Set Up Locker if you want to associate locker areas with the groups in the category.
9. Select Set Up Dropbox if you want to associate assignments with the groups in the category.
10. Click Save.

Create group restricted discussion areas

When you create a new category with Set up Discussion areas selected, you are automatically taken to the Create Restricted Discussion Areas page. From this page you can create a separate topic for each group within an existing or new forum.

1. Select the Forum you want from the drop-down list if you have already created a forum in the Discussions tool.
2. Click the New Forum link to create a new forum for the category. See Creating discussion forums and topics.
3. Click Add Another if you want to add more than one discussion forum.
4. Click Create and Next when finished.

Note  Click Skip to go to the next page in the groups setup process without creating any restricted discussion areas.

Edit group enrollment in restricted discussion areas

You can edit group enrollment in restricted discussion forums and topics from the Groups tool. To add, edit, or delete forums or topics restricted by group you must use the Discussions tool. See Restricting access to discussion forums and topics for more information.

1. On the Manage Groups page, click on the category that contains the discussion forum you want to edit.
2. On the Edit Category page, click the Edit Discussion Restrictions link.
3. Select the forum you want to make changes to in the Forum drop-down list or select "All Forums" to edit multiple forums at once.
4. Use the check boxes in the Edit Restrictions grid to modify group enrollment in discussion forums and topics.
5. Select Automatically create restricted topics if you want to add topics to the forums.
6. Click Save.

Create group restricted locker areas

If you select the Set Up Locker option, locker areas are automatically created for each group in the category.

Create group restricted dropbox folders

If you select the Set Up Dropbox option, you are automatically taken to the Create Folder page. Creating a dropbox folder from this page creates a folder for each of the groups in the category.

Note  Click Skip to go to the next page in the groups setup process without creating any shared folders.

Workspace Summary page

The Workspace summary page lists how many groups, discussion forums, lockers, and dropbox folders were created for the category.