Difference between sections and groups

Sections and groups are two ways an instructor can more effectively manage subsets of participants.

Groups

Groups are subsets of participants for a given worksite. You access groups through the Site Info tool. Groups are not preloaded with official course data, and can therefore be created by the instructor. Groups are useful to organize study groups, project teams, and other, non-official subsets of worksite participants.

Groups have the following attributes:

• Groups are managed through the Site Info tool. They are also accessible through Worksite Setup in My Workspace.
  
  
• Groups may have a title.
  
  
• Groups are not populated with official course data.
  
  
• While groups do not have an assigned teaching assistant per se, an instructor may create an ad hoc teaching assistant by assigning a participant a specific role.

Sections

Sections are similar to groups in that they are subsets of worksite participants. Sections are managed using the Section Info tool. A section may have a variety of data attached to it, such as category, days of the week, times, and an assigned teaching assistant (in a course site only). Depending on how the software is implemented at a given location, the Section Info tool may be loaded with official course sections. If it is not, however, an instructor can set those sections up.

Note: If your implementation has an automatic feed, you will have the option to automatically or manually manage section membership from the Options page in the Section Info tool. Membership information can be based on official registration information, or you can discontinue section and membership updates from the registration system and manually control everything. However, when you select manual mode and then return to automatic mode, you will lose all the changes you made while in manual mode.

Sections have the following attributes:

• Sections are managed through the Section Info tool.
  
  
• You may provide additional information about a section, such as title (required), days, start time, end time, maximum size, and location.
  
  
• Sections must be assigned to a given category. Categories include lecture, lab, discussion, studio, and recitation.
  
  
• In a course site, an instructor may assign a teaching assistant to a section.
  
  
• Participants may not be in more than one section in a given category.
  
  
• Sections may be populated with official data, depending on implementation.

Usage

Both groups and sections work with Announcements, Tests & Quizzes, and Gradebook. Integration with more tools is planned.