How do groups work?

Overview

Perusall uses grouping to encourage dynamic interactions when reading and viewing Perusall content. Groups help to ensure that students:

• See all threads started by members of their group or by an instructor/TA
• Within each thread, will see comments from other members of their group and by an instructor/TA
• Are not left feeling overwhelmed by too many highlights or comments, particularly in high-enrollment courses

Important: We advise maintaining consistent grouping throughout a term.  A change mid-course will cause confusion, as students will see a different set of comments when reopening material. 

Grouping Methods

Perusall offers four Grouping methods. 

• To place all students in a single group, select No grouping. With this option enabled, you will not have the ability to create or manage Group sets, as all students will interact within one collective group for the entire course.
• To use the same groups across all library items and assignments, select Fixed grouping for all course material. At the bottom of the page, you can create a new group set or import one directly from a CSV file or your LMS.

• To organize groups per assignment, select Assignment-based grouping. With this method, students only see comments from their assigned group members for that specific assignment.

  Assignment-based grouping applies strictly to assignments. When viewing materials directly in the Library, students see all content and comments without group restrictions.

• To organize students by specific content, choose Library content-based grouping. Once enabled, students will only see comments from members of their assigned group when viewing that specific item (i.e. textbook, video, or webpage, etc). 

  Library content-based grouping keeps student groups identical across both the Library item and its assigned version.

Managing your group sets

By default, Perusall fills in settings based on your course and institution, using what you entered for your course enrollment during the Get Started wizard. 

To customize, edit your grouping in Step 4: Ready to go! or under Settings > Grouping in the left-side bar of the course. Select your Grouping method, and choose either the automatic or manual option:

• Choose Let Perusall manage my group sets automatically to allow Perusall to create and maintain group sets from your enrollment estimate and target group size. (You do not need to create or assign group sets yourself).

  

  If you copy group sets from another course, this option will not be available.

• If you prefer to build your group sets manually, choose Define and manage my group sets.

  

  1. Select Create new. Provide a name for the group set. 
     • Alternatively, you can select Generate randomly to create multiple randomized group sets at once. 
  2. Organize your students by clicking the Add group button or using the Randomize option. 
  3. Once generated, you can easily rename individual groups or drag and drop students between them.

  

Importing group sets

• Follow these steps to add students using a spreadsheet:
  1. Select Define and manage my group sets.
  2. Click Import group set from CSV and download the provided template. 
  3. After filling out the spreadsheet with group names and saving it as a .csv file, return to Perusall, 
  4. Click Next, name your group set, and upload your file via the Choose button.

• Follow these steps to Import group sets from your LMS (*only for Blackboard, Canvas, or D2L/Brightspace integrated courses)

  1. Select Define and manage my group sets.
  2. Click Import group set from [LMS name]. (In Canvas you can also import sections)
  3. In the LMS popup window, click Authorize
  4. Choose the specific group set or section. 

  Imports must be performed one at a time; to add additional sets or sections, simply repeat this process for each one.

Additional Settings

• Default group set: Choose which specific group set Perusall should use by default for any course materials or assignments that do not explicitly have another group set assigned to them. Alternatively, you can select Randomly choose one of my group sets.
• Behavior when new students join the course: Decide how Perusall handles late-enrolling students.
  • Automatically add new students to a randomly-selected group in each group set so they are never left ungrouped. 
  • Keep new students ungrouped (meaning they won't see comments from other students until you manually assign them or they participate). 

Action menu () items

• The Apply to feature allows you to quickly associate a group set with a given assignment or library content item. 
  
   

  

• You can edit group sets at any time to rename groups, move students, add groups, or re-randomize them.
   

  

• Select duplicate group sets, to replicate a group set if you’d like to make minor edits or use the same overall group set framework with different groups.

  

• The Delete feature allows you to remove a group set that you no longer need.  Deleted group sets cannot be recovered.
  
   

  

Reviewing student groups

To see which groups your students have been assigned to, follow the steps below based on your selected grouping method:

• Go to your course Library or Assignments page. Click the Groups button next to the relevant content item or assignment to view its group set.

  

•  
  1. Click on the Assignments tab.
  2. Open the assignment's Action menu, and then click the Groups button.

  3. View the assigned group set in the pop-up window, or use Select a custom group set to create, edit, or choose a different set for that assignment.
      

     

•  
  1. Click on the Library tab.
  2. Open the document's Action menu, and then click the Groups button.

  3. View the assigned group set in the pop-up window, or use Select a custom group set to create, edit, or choose a different set for that document.

     

Viewing comments by group

Instructors can always view all comments across the entire course. Students will only see the comments made by their group members. 

To filter comments by a specific group:

1. Open your Course home and select an assignment.

2. Click All comments at the top of the window.

3. Select Specific group from the dropdown and choose the group you want to view.

You can also filter comments by group while viewing assignments:

1. Enter the assignment and click All comments at the top of the window, 
2. Select Specific group, and select the group you'd like to see.  
3. Click the All conversations icon on the right navigation panel to see all conversations from that group. Learn more about what icons are visible.

When you filter conversations by group, it's possible that you'll see conversation threads appearing in multiple groups due to the change of membership.

Helpful Tips & Troubleshooting

• Shared Threads: If group memberships change, you may occasionally see the same conversation thread appear across multiple groups.

• First Commenter Behavior: If a student is the first person in their group to comment on a document, they won't see any comments from other groups right away. This is normal; comments from their groupmates will appear as others begin participating.

• Troubleshooting Missing Comments: If a student reports missing comments, first verify their activity using the steps above, then double-check that they are properly assigned to a group under Settings > Grouping.

• Switching grouping methods: We recommend sticking with one grouping method for the entire term. If you need to switch methods and have assignments restricted to specific groups, you must update those assignments first: edit each assignment, go to Options, and change the Assign to setting from specific groups to entire course.