Welcome to this Blackboard Training: Groups, brought to you by the Center for Innovation. In this training you will learn the basics of group features in Blackboard, including setup of groups, the student view of the Group area, and grading of group assignments. These features will help you to successfully facilitate an online course using groups in CAPS. If you would prefer to access written instructions for this training you can do so at the bottom of your screen. You may also access group learning objects at the bottom of the screen that will allow you to practice the skills covered in this training. As CAPS faculty, you will need to assign students to groups if your course has a group project. To do so, select Groups in the Users and Groups area in the Control Panel. Using the dropdown menu, select Edit for the group you wish to modify. You will most likely want to select Remove Members already in a Group from the Available Members List. This will allow you to view each group that has been created along with a list of students who can be assigned to the group. As you add a student to a group that student will be removed from the available students list. This will keep you from assigning the same student to multiple groups. If you want students in multiple groups, select Show All Course Roles in the Available Members List. Scroll down to the Membership area and assign the students you wish to be a part of that group. Click the arrow to move the students into the “Selected Items” box. You can remove students from the group by selecting them in the Selected Items and clicking the arrow to move them back to “Items to Select.” Click Submit. Once a student is assigned to one group they will be unavailable to be assigned to another group. As you may know, the way you view Blackboard is not the same way students view Blackboard. Now we are going to shift over to how the student experiences Blackboard when in a group. For students, the My Groups area automatically shows up in the course menu. Students will find their groups under this menu link. Students can click the Group Homepage to see group members and links to other group tools. Group assignments will also be listed here if you have made any associated to the group. Additional tools that may be added to the group area include the Collaboration tool, which allows students to converse in group rooms with chat and whiteboard functions. File Exchange permits students to share documents amongst each other, allowing for centralized file sharing rather than using email or another means. This tool is ideal for keeping track of versions of papers or projects. The Group Discussion Board houses discussion forums for the group. You can pre-populate the discussion forum with threads or allow groups to create their own. There is also an email option that allows just group members to email each other. Enabling tools in the groups area lets students work together in one space, without having to shift to their email or other class discussion forums in order to do their work. The benefit of this to you is that all the group work is contained in one space, which allows you to monitor group progress more effectively. This may help your students be more productive, organized, and lead to better projects and papers. The Center for Innovation will automatically enable the Collaboration, File Exchange, Group Discussion Board, Email, and Assignment functions. Blogs and wikis could also be enabled for group use by the Center for Innovation if a group would benefit from such a tool. The new version of Blackboard allows assignments to be applied to a group rather than an individual student. One student from each group will be able to submit an assignment on behalf of the entire group. This submission will appear in the course Grade Center for each student in the group. To grade a group assignment, go to the Grade Center and to the appropriate grading column. Using the dropdown menu, select Grade Group Attempt. This will allow you to grade the assignment once and apply the grade to each group member. If you wish to grade group members individually, perhaps because one student did not participate and you wish to deduct points, select View Grade Details. Download the group assignment to grade. Provide a score, then click Save and Exit. Only the student you are grading will receive this grade.