Chapter 6
Groups
Instructors who assign project work to students in their class can benefit from the Groups option available in Blackboard. Instructors have the ability to create multiple groups that have their own communication tools within their Blackboard course. Only those students enrolled in the group will have access to any of these group communication tools (Discussion Board, File Exchange, Virtual Classroom, Send E-mail).
Enrolled students can now belong to more than one group in the same course.
To Create a Group in Your Blackboard Course:
- In the User Management area of the Control Panel, select "Manage Groups."
- Choose "Add Group."
- In Section 1, fill in the requested Main Group Information.
- In Section 2, under Group Options, choose which communication tools you wish to allow for this group by clicking the box in front of those options.
- Click the "Yes" radio button for "Make this group visible now" and then click the "Submit" button.
- Click "OK" to acknowledge the receipt of your changes.
You will need to follow this procedure for each group you wish to create in your Blackboard course. After all groups are created you will need to add users to each one.
To Add Enrolled Students to a Group in Your Course:
- In User Management area of the Control Panel, select "Manage Groups." (see note)
- To the far right of the group you wish to add users to, click on the "Modify button.
- Choose "Add Users to Group."
- Click on the "Search" button and a list of all enrolled students will appear.
- Check the boxes in front of the names of students you wish to add.
- Click the "Submit" button and your students will be added to the group.
- Click "OK" to acknowledge the receipt of your changes.
- Click "OK" to return to the "Manage Groups" area.
You may skip this step (step 1) if you remain in the "Manage Groups" area from the previous procedure.
Before a student can post a message to the group Discussion Board, a forum (topic) for the discussion must be created. Currently, students who are members of a Group within a Blackboard course are unable to create any forums for the group Discussion Board. Therefore, instructors will be required to create all forums for groups that have the Discussion Board option enabled. In Chapter 3, you created a Discussion Board forum for the entire class. But to create a Forum for a Group, instructors must enter the Group from the student view and then create the forum within each Group Discussion Board.