How do groups work?

Perusall automatically groups students in the course into smaller "discussion groups", by default with about 20 students. Students will only see the comments of other students in their group, plus any threads that an instructor has started. This is to ensure that:

1. Students see enough comments so that they can get into a good discussion of the text.
2. Students don't see too many comments that it is overwhelming to read and process.

Each document has a different set of groups formed, so students have an opportunity to interact with different people over the course of the semester. Groups for a particular document are fixed once the document is uploaded, to ensure students have a consistent view of each document.

The number of groups formed depends on the enrollment estimate and target group size, both of which can be updated through the course settings. However, note that since the groups are fixed, changing these settings will not affect the groups for any documents already added to the course; they will instead take effect going forward for any documents uploaded after that point.

As a consequence of this, if a student is the first one in their group to comment on a particular document, then they won't see any other comments in the document even though other students in the class may have also started commenting. This is normal; they should start to see other students' comments as others in their group start reading and commenting on the document as well.

Differentiated assignments and Peer Review assignments override course grouping settings, so students will see all conversations from the other students assigned to the same content.

Reviewing student groups

To see the groups that students have been placed into:

1. Click on the Library tab on the course home page.
2. Select a document, and then click the Groups button in the panel.

Automatic vs Specify groups (formerly known as Manual Groups)

If you prefer to manually place students into groups, you can do so under the Grouping tab of the course settings, and select "Specify groups." Here you can manually assign students to groups by entering a group number next to each student in your roster. For example, to place students A, B, C, and D into two groups, you could assign students A and B to group 1 and students C and D to group 2. Students that enroll in your course after you set the groups will be placed into one of the groups at random, but you can change this in the Grouping tab at any time.

Syncing groups with LTI 1.3 Integration

We now have the ability to sync groups from Canvas, Blackboard, & Desire2Learn/Brightspace using API client ID & API secret.  These must be sent over by an administrator in order to be accessible by instructor.

Syncing groups with Canvas LTI 1.1

If you use Canvas integration and would like Perusall to utilize your Canvas groups, see the Canvas Legacy setup page. 

As a limitation of the Canvas LTI 1.1 integration -- we can only sync the groups with Canvas if there is one group set in Canvas. (The reason is that Canvas sends us the group membership of students as part of the LTI launch, but not which group set each group is in).  Also, Canvas does not send specific group names, just which students should be in a group together.  For example, "Group 2" in Canvas, might end up being our "Group 7" in Perusall. (Canvas just gives us an opaque ID of the group students are in within Canvas, so the students who are together in Canvas should be together in Perusall.)

Changing grouping options

Be careful when changing the grouping settings for a course: since students only see the comments of others in their group, a change mid-course could be confusing to students since they will see a different set of comments when reopening a document after you have made the change. In particular, it is possible that a student may no longer be able to see one of their own comments in the document; if student B responded to a comment by student A and then those two students were later placed into separate groups, student B would no longer be able to see her response because she would no longer see student A's comment.

You can always change from automatic to specify groups, or change the specified grouping at any time.

As described above, the automatically-generated groups for a particular document are fixed once the document is uploaded, to ensure students have a consistent view of each document. If you want to change from specified to automatic groups and force Perusall to regenerate its automatic groups (e.g., you may want larger or smaller groups):

1. On the Course home page, click the Library tab, and then select the document you want to change the groups for.
2. Click the Groups button on the right to show the current groups for the document.
3. Click the Reshuffle groups button at the bottom of the groups dialog.