Groups and staff

How students reach a course through groups, how to add and detach groups, enrol individual students, and manage the course's owners, teachers and assistants.

These actions are on the Groups (/teaching/<course>/people/groups) and Staff (…/people/staff) tabs of the People page. The student list and actions on one student are on Students.

How students reach a course

Groups take courses. Adding a group to a course makes every member of the group and of its subgroups a student of the course. Afterwards the course follows the group:

a new member added to the group joins the course automatically;
a student who leaves the group (when no other group brings them into the course) leaves the course, but their work and results stay.

Enrol individually only students who are not in the course’s groups.

The “Groups” tab

The table lists the groups attached to the course:

Column	What it shows
Group	The group’s name and, when needed, its parent group and teacher, so that groups with the same name can be told apart
Students	The number of current students and how many left
Added	When the group was added to the course
State	Active, Enrolments ended, No students or Group archived

Under the table it says how many students are enrolled individually; Show them opens them on the Students tab.

Adding groups

Select Add groups.
Find the groups: you can search by group name, parent group or teacher name. Each group shows its number of members (subgroups included).
Tick one or more groups and select Add N groups.

The list holds the active groups of the course’s organisation that are not attached yet. Course owners, teachers and organisation admins can add groups; an assistant who is also a group admin can add only their own groups.

Detaching a group

In the group’s row, select … → Detach….
When nothing in the course refers to the group or its students yet, confirm with Detach group: the group’s link and its students’ enrolment records are removed.

A group can’t be detached when:

announcements are addressed to it;
its students have submitted solutions;
its students have marks, messages, individual tasks or quiz attempts.

The dialog then explains why, and when the group has current students it offers End enrolments: the group’s students leave the course, and their work and results stay. The group stays in the list with the state Enrolments ended.

Enrolling students individually

Select Enrol students.
Search by name or username; narrow the list by choosing a Group. Each student shows their groups.
Tick students and select Enrol N students.

The list holds only the organisation’s students (not teachers or admins).
Already enrolled: the student is in the course.
Left the course earlier: you can enrol the student again; their earlier work comes back.
A student who belongs to one of the course’s groups is enrolled through it; otherwise No group.

Course owners, teachers and organisation admins can enrol students.

The “Staff” tab

This tab lists the course staff (owners, teachers and assistants) with their roles; your own row is marked “you”. Group admins and organisation admins are not listed here: their access comes from a group or the organisation.

What each role can do is on Roles and permissions.

Adding staff

Select Add staff.
Search by name or username. The Show filter lists Teachers and admins (the default) or Everyone in the organisation.
Tick people.
At the bottom, choose the Role: Owner, Teacher or Assistant.
Select Add N people.

Each person shows what they are in the organisation: Organisation admin, Teacher, Group admin or Teaches a course.
A Student in this course can’t be ticked: end their enrolment first.
Former staff: added again, they get the chosen role.

Changing a role and removing staff

… → Change role → choose the new role. The change shows at once.
… → Remove from staff… → Remove. The person loses access to the course, but what they did stays recorded.

A course always has at least one owner: the only owner can’t be removed or given another role. Add another owner first.

Course owners and organisation admins can add staff, change roles and remove staff.