RWTHmoodle has several group modes for activities. These allow managers to filter user contributions within the activity by group membership using a separate drop-down menu. For communication and collaboration activities such as forums, glossaries, or wikis, the group modes also control the visibility of a group's contributions to the other groups.

The group modes may be activated for single activities or course-wide in the course settings.

1. Quick activation of Group Mode on the course page

The group icon behind an activity shows managers which group mode activity is using. The icon is only visible when the course page is in edit mode. By clicking on the group icon managers can change the group mode directly on the course page. Changing the group icon indicates that group mode is currently active.

The precondition is that the setting "Force group mode" in course settings has to be set to "No". If this setting is set to "Yes," the group mode that has been defined in the learning room context applies to all activities in the learning room and cannot be changed in the activity context.

•  No groups - There are no groups in the learning room, all participants belong to the whole group.
•  Visible groups - Each group only sees the members of its own group. The other groups and their activities like forum posts or wiki entries are invisible.
•  Separate groups - Each group works on its own but sees the other groups and their activities, but only with read access.

Selecting one of the group modes additionally activates a dropdown menu within the activity, which can be used to filter for contributions from the respective groups, depending on the permissions level.

 

Note

The activation of a group mode does not limit the access to an activity or material to a certain group. Please use the "Restrict Access" settings in the activity settings for this.

2. Activate Group Mode in activity settings

As an alternative to the quick activation on the course page the desired group mode can also be activated via the settings of the activity:

1. Switch the course page to the editing mode by clicking on the button "Switch on editing" in the upper right corner.
2. Click on "Edit" behind an activity and then select "Settings" in the context menu.
3. Open the section "Further settings" by clicking on it.
4. Select the appropriate group mode.
5. If necessary, select a grouping to whose groups the group mode should be restricted.
6. Save the settings via "Save changes".

3. Examples for the effects of Group Mode

• Using groups in the Forum activity allows managers to restrict discussion among students to discussions within a group. In the "Separate Groups" group mode, group members only see posts by members of their own group and can only reply to those posts. The discussions of other groups are not visible. In the group mode "Visible groups", students can read the other groups' discussion posts but can only reply to them in the context of their own group.
• If the group mode is enabled for an Assignment activity, managers can filter submissions to show only the submissions of members of a selected group. There is no difference between visible and separate groups for assignments. A group never sees the submissions of other groups.

For more information: 

• Course-wide Group Mode
• Restrict Access