Cobra Learning - Managing Groups and Group Categories

Managing groups and group categories

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 group category

On the Manage Groups page, click New Category.
Enter a Category Name and Description.
Select an Enrollment Type from the drop-down list. See Cobra Learning - Managing Group Enrollments for more information.
Depending on the chosen Enrollment Type, enter the Number of Groups to create, the Number of Users per group, or both.
Depending on the chosen Enrollment Type, select Auto-enroll new users to automatically enroll users to groups.
Depending on the chosen Enrollment Type, select Randomize users in groups to randomly place users in groups. If you do not choose this option, users are placed alphabetically based on the classlist.
Select Set up dropbox folders if you want to associate assignments with the groups in the category.
Click Save.

Workspace Summary page

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

Creating 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. On this page, you can create a separate topic for each group within an existing or new forum.

Do one of the following:
- Select an existing Forum from the drop-down list.
- Click the New Forum link to create a new forum for the category. See Cobra Learning - Creating discussion forums and topics for more information.
Click Add Another if you want to add more than one discussion forum, then repeat step 1.
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.

Creating group restricted dropbox folders

When you create a new category with Set up dropbox folders selected, you are automatically taken to the Create Dropbox Folders page. Creating a dropbox folder from this page creates a folder for each of the groups in the category. See Creating dropbox folders for more information.

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

Creating a group

On the Manage Groups page, select the category you want to add a group to from the View Categories drop-down list.
Click Add Group from the context menu of the category.
Enter a Group Name if you do not want to use the default name provided.
Enter a Group Code if you do not want to use the default group code provided.
Enter a Description for the group.
Click Save.

Creating a new group after enrolling users

If you add a new group with Auto-enroll new users enabled, new users automatically enroll in the new group until users are evenly distributed between it and other groups. Once it is the same size as other groups, new users are added normally.

Advanced properties and additional options when setting up groups

Advanced properties

Auto-enroll new users New users are automatically added to the group with the least users, or to a new group if the maximum size of all existing groups has been met.

Use this option when you don’t want to manually add new users to groups.

Note If you choose the enrollment type Groups of # you might end up with a group that has only one or a few users in it. You can manually change group enrollment, including adding users to full groups, using the Enroll Users page.

Randomize users in groups Users are added to groups based on a random order. If this option is not selected, users are added to groups alphabetically based on their order in the classlist.

Additional Options

Set up discussion areas Allows you to select or create group specific discussion forums and topics.

Use this option when you want users to share ideas, ask questions, and discuss material using the Discussions tool.

Use this option when you want users to store their work in a group work area where other members of the group can view and modify it.

Set up dropbox folders Allows you to create dropbox folders for each group. A group can have multiple dropbox folders belonging to different categories.

Use this option when you want each group to have its own dropbox folder submissions area. This could be helpful if different users are responsible for grading different groups.

Editing groups and group categories

On the Manage Groups page, select the category you want to edit from the View Categories drop-down list.
Click on the group or category you want to edit.
Make your changes.
Click Save.

Deleting groups and group categories

On the Manage Groups page, select the category that contains the groups you want to delete from the View Categories drop-down list.
Select the check box beside each group you want to delete from the category, or select the check box beside the category to delete the category and all of it's groups.
Click Delete.

What happens when you delete a group?

If you've selected Auto-Enroll New Users, users are automatically distributed in the remaining groups.
If groups are set up for manual enrollment, you must add users to the remaining groups using the Enroll Users page.
Group discussion forums remain available for reference. You can delete them in Discussions.
Group dropbox folders and the files they contain are deleted.

What happens when you delete a category?

Users are no longer enrolled in groups because they do not exist.
Group discussion forums remain available for reference. You can manually delete them in Discussions.
Group dropbox folders and the files they contain are deleted.