Creating Groups in Brightspace

Many times, students will work in groups to do a project. Brightspace allows you to set up groups in a variety of ways. You can also set up group discussion boards that are only available to group members. Groups can also submit a single assignment that you can then assign a group grade. This guide will show you how to set up your groups.

Set Up Groups

Go to Course Tools > Groups in the nav bar. Please note that the location of groups might be different for you based on the navigation bar associated with your module. Click on New Category to create a new category for the group.

On this screen you will give the group Category a meaningful name (1). Include a Description (2) that will be visible to the students. Select which Enrollment Type (3) you would like to use and finally pick a group prefix eg Lab Group or Research Group etc. The number 1,2,3 etc will be appended to the end of this prefix.

Enrollment Types

• # of Groups – No Auto Enrollments – set the number of groups, and the instructor will manually assign students
• Groups of # – set the group capacity, i.e. “groups of 20”
• # of Groups – set a group limit, i.e. “9 groups total”
• Groups of # – Self Enrollment – set the group capacity and allow students to self-enroll
• # of Groups – Self Enrollment – set the group limit and allow students to self-enroll
• # of Groups, Capacity of # – Self Enrollment – set the group capacity and number of groups, and allow students to self-enroll
• Single user, member-specific groups – set up groups of 1

Depending on which Enrollment Type you chose, you will have fields to fill in regarding number of groups, number of users, and other enrollment-related options.

Decide on which additional options you would like :

• Set up Discussion areas – This will set up a Discussion Item that only group members can use. The instructor can also view and participate in the discussion. To learn more about Group Discussions click here.
• Set up lockers – Use the Locker tool to upload and store files in Brightspace. Locker enables you to upload files from your PC or to create new HTML files. Your personal locker area is not course-specific. You can access the locker from anywhere in Brightspace and store all of your files together.
• Set up assignment submission folders – This allows you to immediately create an Assignment that will be associated with these groups. This assignment will allow a group submission. You can also create a group assignment later following these instructions.

If you tick the box for Discussion areas then you fill in additional information that will create the forum for you as well as the topics inside it for each group. If you choose not to tick this box, you can navigate to the Discussions page and create the forum and topics yourself. Click Save when you are finised and you will see your new groups created.