Overview
Once you have created your Groups, you can easily create discussion topics that will be automatically group restricted. To create restricted topics, you must first create a forum. For more information about creating forums click here.
After the forum is created, you can create Group Discussions in one of two ways. The method you use depends on whether or not the topic will be linked to the grade book and your personal preference/organization. You can either create a single Group Topic or automatically create one Topic per Group.
Creating a Group Topic
Note: After you create a Topic once a thread is posted you cannot change the restriction. (i.e., go from an Open topic to a Group topic or vice versa). If you would like to change this, you must create a new Topic.
Step 1. From the Discussions tool, create a new Topic by clicking the blue New button and then selecting New Topic from the drop-down.
Step 2. When creating a New Topic, Full instructions on creating a Discussion Topic can be found here. After you've finished setting up your New Group Topic, You can go to the advanced options Availability Dates & Conditions there will be an option to Manage Restrictions.
Step 3. Then you will want to select Restrict topic and separate threads and select the Group Category.
When you look at the Topic in the Discussion tool, it should look like the following. Note the Group/section restrictions icon (
).
When you go to view students’ posts, you can filter by group so that you are only seeing students from one group. This is helpful if multiple instructors and/or teaching assistants are assigned to grade specific groups.
