The Groups tool enables you to split up the students enroled in your course into smaller groups. This allows you to let the students work on, for example, an assignment together or for administrative reasons. You can choose to divide everybody into groups or just a specific amount of students.

There are three options to create groups:

1. Create groups in OSIRIS
2. Create groups in Brightspace
3. Create subgroups in Brightspace.

You can manage your groups with the Manage Groupstool.

An instructional video is included for this subject. This instructional video will provide a step-by-step explanation about how to transfer the groups in OSIRIS to Brightspace. A written manual can be found below the video.

It is also possible to create new groups in Brightspace. An instructional video is included for this subject. A written manual can be found below the video.

It is possible to create groups in Brightspace if you have decided not to create groups in OSIRIS or just want to create additional groups in Brightspace.

• Go to Administration in the navbar of your course.
• Click Groups. This will open the Manage Groups page.
• Click Create Category.

1. Give the category a name (for example Werkcollege (study group)).
2. Add a category description if needed.
3. Determine how the groups will be created with the help of the drop-down menu below Enrolment Type. You can choose to allocate students to groups yourself, automatically or give them the option to choose their own group (Self Enrolment). You can subsequently determine the total amount of groups (# of Groups) and/or the total amount of students per group (Groups of #). You can find descriptions of the seven possible group structures below. Depending on your preferences you can now indicate the amount of groups and/or the total amount of students per group. 

An instructional video is included for the different Group Categories. A written manual can be found below the video.

You can create seven different types of group categories in Brightspace:

1. # of Groups, no Auto Enrolment: n groups.
   This option allows you to determine the total amount of groups you want to create. You can fill in this number below Number of Groups. This option allows you to manually allocate students to groups.
2. Groups of #: groups of a maximum of n students
   This option allows you to indicate the maximum amount of students per group. You can fill in this number below Number of Users. Brightspace will then automatically allocate students to groups.
3. # of Groups: n groups.
   This option allows you to determine the total amount of groups you want to create. You can fill in this number below Number of Groups. Brightspace will then automatically allocate students to groups.  
4. Groups of # - Self Enrolment: groups of a maximum of n students
   This option allows you to indicate the maximum amount of students per group. You can fill in this number below Number of Users. Students are subsequently allowed to enrol themselves into the group of their choice.
5. # of Groups - Self Enrolment: n groups.
   This option allows you to determine the total amount of groups you want to create. You can fill in this number below Number of Groups. Students are subsequently allowed to enrol themselves into the group of their choice.
6. # of Groups, Capacity of # - Self Enrolment: n groups of a maximum of n students.
   This option allows you to determine the total amount of groups you want to create and the maximum amount of students per group. You can fill in the number of groups below Number of Groups and the total amount of students per group below Number of Users. Students are subsequently allowed to (un)enrol themselves into the group of their choice.
7. Single user, member-specific groups: personal group per student.
   This option creates a single group per student. You can use this option if you want to work with blogs/journals. Students can subsequently write a blog in a personal and private discussion topic.

Options 2 and 3 allow you to change the following using Advanced Properties:

• Auto-Enrol New Users: Brightspace automatically enrols all students that are participating in your course after the groups have been created. (Students will always be allocated to the group with the fewest amount of participants; this option will make sure that there are no groups without any participants.)
• Randomise users in Groups: students are randomly allocated to a group. (Students are allocated to groups in alphabetical order when this option is not selected.)

Options 4, 5, and 6 allow you to change the following using Advanced Properties:

• Set an end date (Expiry Date) for the self-enrolment period which means that students are not able to join and/or leave groups after said date. Fill in a date or select Now to stop self-enrolment immediately. When you add a date, students will be able to enrol until 23:59:59 on the date prior to the one entered. This means that when you enter the date 18-12-19, students will be able to enrol until 23:59:59 (or 11:59:59 pm) on 17-12-19. At midnight the registration will be closed.
• Allocate unenroled users who did not enrol themselves in any group. This will happen automatically after the enrolment deadline has passed and will allocate students to a random group (group capacity might be ignored).

The example above uses the fifth enrolment option: four groups that allow students to manually enrol themselves (# of Groups - Self Enrolment, Number of Groups: 4). With this fifth option you can go to Advanced Properties to choose a self enrolment deadline and add an automatic group allocation (for students who are not enroled when the deadline has passed).

1. It is possible to add restrictions for who is able to enrol themselves for a certain group below Restrict Enrolments To. An example would be that only students who are enroled in one of the two lecture groups are allowed to enrol themselves for one of the tutorial groups. How this option works and in which specific cases this can be used is explained below the header creating subgroups in Brightspace.
2. Fill in a group code or name below Group Prefix. This number and/or code will be shown in the Group Category menu before the number of the group (the example uses the prefix Werkc- which results in the following groups in the category Werkcollegegroepsoverzicht: Werkc-1, Werkc-2, Werkc-3 en Werkc-4). This code cannot be longer than 40 characters.
3. Choose a start date and time under Set Self Enrolment Start Date. From this moment on students can enrol in a group.
4. Set Self Enrolment Expiry Date allows you to choose an end date and time for the self enrolment.
5. You can check one or more of the boxes below Additional Options to add the following:
   • a discussion forum and topic.
   • a locker (a groups specific digital storage that allows a group to digitally share their files without interference from other students).
   • an assignment submission folder.
6. Click Save. If you have chosen one of the additional options, you will now go to the tool that enables you to create said options. You will now return to the Manage Groups page.

Brightspace will now create the groups in the background. You will receive a notification when all groups have been created.

In Manage Groups, you can:

• View your group categories and groups.
• Create new categories.
• Edit categories and groups.
• View which students are enrolled in which groups.
• Delete categories and groups.
• Send an email to all students in a particular group.

• The overview lists all group categories one below the other. You can see how many groups fall under each category and whether there are any associated activities, such as a locker.
• If you wish to create another Group Category (for example, a Lecture and/or Practical group), click on Create Category and follow the steps described above.
• Next to the name of the group category (Groups for Discussions), you can see how many groups the category contains (3). Click on the drop-down arrow to:

   •    edit the category, for example to create a discussion topic or locker for the group if you hadn’t done so previously (Edit Category). Or to change the name of the category.

^{•    add a group (Add Group).}

   ^{•    add students to groups (Manage Members). In a pop-up window, you can distribute students from your classlist across the various groups.}

^{•    to add a group of students in one go using a CSV file containing their details (Import).}

   ^{•    to create a CSV file containing the details of students belonging to that category (Export)}

   ^{•    to send an email to all users in the category (Email).}

   ^{•    to delete the category (Delete).}

When you click on a category, a new screen will appear showing an overview of the groups that fall under that category. On this screen, you can carry out the same actions as you would for a category, but specifically for an individual group. For example, you can edit, export, email or delete a group.

You can add students to groups by clicking the Import button.

1. Under Select Category, choose the category with the group you want to manage.
2. Download the CSV template and fill in the appropriate data. Fill in ACTION,Username,Group Code as follows: Action is always enroll. Username is the student number and group code is the code of the group where you want to enroll the students.
3. Finally, choose the CSV file under the Upload File button.
4. You complete the action by clicking Import File.

You can export participants from groups by clicking the Export button.

1. Under Select Category, choose the category of groups you want to export.
2. Under Select Group you can optionally export participants from one specific group.
3. Click Export.

If you have chosen an enrolment type without self or auto enrolment, then you will have to distribute the students among the groups manually. An instructional video is included for this subject. This instructional video will provide a step-by-step explanation about how to enrol users manually.

It is also possible to create subgroups in Brightspace. This allows you to basically divide groups into smaller groups. We use the word basically because these subgroups will not appear as such below the parent group in that specific category table. They will, instead, appear as an independent Group Category in the category overview. This happens because you will not actually create a subgroup but you create a new category that has an enrolment restriction (Restrict Enrolment To) so only members of a specific group are allowed to enrol themselves or be enroled for this new category. This restriction can be placed on subgroups linked to parent groups that have been created in Brightspace and parent groups that have been created in OSIRIS (no changes will be made to the OSIRIS group in question).

For example: your course contains a practical session that has been registered in OSIRIS and consists out of two practical session groups: Practicumgroep 1 and Practicumgroep 2. These groups will show up in Brightspace as a category Practicumgroep that contains the groups Pracgr-1 and Pracgr-2. The group Pracgr-1 consists out of 15 students who need to be split up into three smaller groups so they can work together on the assignments. This can be done by creating a new Group Category (for instance: Pracgr-1-opdr) and adding the restriction that only students enroled for Pracgr-1 can enrol themselves for the groups in this category.

• Go to Administration via the navbar of your cursus.
• Click Groups.
• Click Create Category.

1. Name the new Group Category (for instance Practicumgroep 1 opdracht).
2. Choose an Enrolment Type and determine the accompanying Number of Users and/or Number of Groups (the example uses five self-enrolment groups each containing three students).
3. The drop-down menu below Restrict Enrolment to enables you to choose the main group from which the students can be added to the subgroups (for example Group 1).
4. Give the subgroup a Group Prefix (Group 1 - practicum). 
5. Click Save.

In the image above, you can see that the group category Practicum Group appears amongst all the other categories. This consists of two groups (as indicated by the number (2) after Practicum Group). The question mark icon next to Practicum Group (2) indicates that one of the two groups contains sub-groups: Sub-groups depend on Groups in this Category. As you can see, these phrases do indicate that the category contains sub-groups, but they do not specify which sub-groups these are (which highlights the importance of choosing a sub-group prefix that reflects the relationship with the main group).

When you click on the category, the (sub)groups will appear there. As a subgroup is simply a Group Category, you can edit it in the same way as the other Group Categories (for example, by adding students, assigning lockers and/or discussion forums to the groups, and so on).