Best practices for group enrollment


To illustrate best practices for group enrollment, the following scenario includes a class of 185 users.

Your latest assignment requires users to use a software program that is only available in certain labs which must be booked and supervised. You book 4 labs that can hold 50 users each and create 4 corresponding groups.

You select the following group options:

  • For the Enrollment Type, you select # of Groups and set the Number of Groups to 4.
  • You leave both Auto-enroll new users and Randomize users in groups cleared because new users will not be joining your course and you are not worried about having an unbiased distribution of users, since group membership will not influence users’ grades.
  • You select Set up discussion areas and create discussion forums where users can post and answer questions about the computer software.
  • You leave Set up lockers and Set up assignments submission folders cleared because you do not want users collaborating on their projects and you already have your assignments organized.

Note: On the Enroll Users page, if the option is configured, an Advanced Search Options link displays. Organizations can create their own custom search and enroll page using iLearn Valence that opens in a new browser window via this link. Instructors can use this custom search and enroll page to filter students according to certain criteria, such as age or demographic data, to determine who to put into each group.

In the following scenario, you have a class of 29 users.

Your latest assignment requires that users research a particular topic, write a report on it, and hold a seminar for the class. You know that you want users to work in groups of 5, but you want to give them some flexibility in choosing both who they work with and what topic they work on.

You select the following group options:

  • For the Enrollment Type, you select Groups of # - Self Enrollment. You set the Number of Users per group to 5 and rename each of the 6 groups after the topic the group will work on.
  • You select Set up discussion areas and create discussion topics for each of the groups. You associate the topics with a grade item and tell users that you expect them to communicate with each other on their progress and concerns in the discussions topic for their group. They receive individual grades based on their participation.
  • You select Set up lockers and encourage users to save their collaborative work in their group Locker area.
  • You select Set up assignments submission folders and create separate Assignment submission folders for each group's Research Notes, Report, and Seminar Notes. You associate the folders with grade items and assign the same grade to all members of the group.