Understanding Groups

Groups in the Assessment Tool perform two important functions:

1. They control access to Learners, because only Educators who are assigned to a Group can see the Learners in that Group.
2. They allow for Learners to be grouped together to facilitate assigning them to Assessments, and to allow for reporting on a Group basis.

When first created, a Group is like an empty container, i.e. you can create a Group with no Learners and no Educators assigned to it.

Once a Group is created, you can then add Learners and Educators to the Group. A Group may contain any number of Learners, and Learners and Educators can be added or removed at any stage.

There are two types of Group in the Assessment Tool:

Organisation Groups are created and managed by the Administrator of your Organisation, and control which Learners can be seen within the Assessment Tool by which Educator. Organisation Groups can have multiple Learners and Educators assigned to them, but can also have one or more Group Owners - A specific Educator who is able to assign other Educators to that Group.

For example: Acme Training has 1,000 Learners and employs 20 Educators. Each Educator is responsible for approximately 50 Learners, so the Organisation Administrator has created 20 Groups, and assigned only the Learners that that Educator needs to see to the particular Group.

In addition, Acme runs campuses in Auckland and in Wellington. So the Organisation Administrator has created two other Organisation Groups, called Wellington and Auckland, and added the Learners from these centres to the appropriate Organisation Groups.

Mary is responsible for the Wellington campus of Acme Training. While she is not an Organisation Administrator, she has been assigned as Group Owner of the Wellington Group, so that she can independently manage the Wellington Group without having to call on the Organisation Administrator, because she is able to add Educators and Learners to the Wellington Group.

Educator Groups are created when an Educator chooses to create a new Group or when they are created for an Educator by the Organisation Administrator, and are specific to the individual Educator. As such, they only have one owner, though they can be assigned to another Educator, if, for example, the original creator of the Group leaves the organisation. Educator Groups are most useful for organising sub-groups of Learners within the total Group of Learners that are assigned to an Educator by an Organisation Group.

For example: Raewyn has overall responsibility for three classes at Acme Training, but runs some tutorials that include members from more than one class. Although each class has been organised into a separate Organisation Group, Raewyn has also created Educator Groups with only her tutorial Learners in them, so that she can easily assign an Assessment to just that tutorial Group.