Each month we will share some of our timely frequently asked questions around educational technology.
I was doing groupwork in my on-campus topic, can I set up groups in FLO so students can continue with this groupwork?
Yes. Groups can be created automatically, manually, or you can allow students to allocate themselves into groups using the ‘Group selection’ activity. Refer to Groups and groupings on the FLO staff support site for specific instructions.
Note that there are two types of groups in FLO – ‘User created groups’ and ‘Student Two groups’. User created groups are created by the user (topic coordinator/teacher) and should be used for student groupwork. Student Two groups are created automatically based on data in the Student System (e.g. tutorials, lectures, seminars). Student Two groups are synced every few hours throughout the semester, therefore can’t be modified or deleted by teaching staff.
Once groups have been created, they can be applied to activities in FLO to enable students to work in groups or allow staff to monitor group of students. Activities that can be utilised in group mode include:
- discussion forum
- assignment
- wiki
- peer assessment
- dialogue
In addition, groups can be used to override quiz and assignment due dates, as well as apply restrictions on activities.
How do I find out if students have not been allocated to a group?
To see if any students are missing from a group within a grouping, go to Administration > Users > Groups > Overview, select the grouping from the drop-down list and tick the check box ‘Display students not in grouping’. This feature is useful to see if any students are missing from group activities in FLO.
In the overview, you can also display students who are members of multiple groups within a grouping. This can be helpful when setting up an activity such as a group assignment to ensure each student can only submit to one group.
I’ve been told that I can enhance academic integrity by incorporating randomization into the design of quizzes. How do I do this?
There are three ways that randomization could be built into a quiz. Briefly, these include:
- Randomizing the order of potential answers within a single quiz question
This can be done by using the shuffle within questions function. Further information on shuffling for the following question types is available:
- Randomizing the order that questions appear within a quiz
When you set up a quiz, on the editing page you will see a shuffle option. This can be used to change the order in which the questions appear. Just make sure that you don’t use this option for situations where addressing a quiz question is dependent upon information that was presented beforehand. - Randomizing the questions that are used within a quiz
Rather than have all students complete the same quiz questions, you might also decide that you would like them to complete different questions based around a common theme. This can be achieved by creating a question bank and creating questions in categories.
How do I re-open a quiz for one or more students who have been granted supplementary assessment?
It is possible to give one or more students the opportunity to sit an online test after its closing date. The relevant section of the quiz preferences in FLO is called “user overrides” or “group overrides”. Either the topic coordinator or a teacher in the FLO topic can change user overrides settings.
More information can be found in the eLearning FLO Staff support site and you can contact your eLearning support team for further assistance.