Google Groups
| Application Info | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Groups |
| Icon: | 
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| URL: | http://groups.google.com |
| Type: | Groupware service |
| |
Google Groups allow you to have discussions and share resources in the context of groups (e.g. courses, teams, etc.).
Contents |
General Information
Google Groups are useful for having discussions and sharing resources with other users. As such, most use of Google Groups will revolve around:
- Creating and commenting on discussion posts and
- Sharing documents.
Technical Use
After logging in to your university Google account, use the top menu bar to navigate to Groups, located under the more tab.
Creating a Group
On your main groups page, you will see an area titled My Groups. To begin creating a new group, click the Create... button.
You will need to begin by giving your group a name. This name should be unique and should correspond to the context of the group. When creating a group for a course, for instance, you should, whenever possible, include the course name, semester, year, and instructor in the group name so as to prevent confusion (e.g. Guiding Young Children - Kimmons Fall 2010). It is important for your group to have a unique name so that users who should find it can do so without confusion and so that other users (who, for instance, might be taking a different section of the same course) will know not to select it.
As you type in the name of the group, the form will automatically generate an email address for the group. This address can be used for posting discussions and for sharing documents. If you would like, you can shorten this perhaps unwieldy email address by typing in whatever you would like, but you should attempt to make the address unique, like the group name (e.g. KimmonsGYCF10).
Group descriptions are especially useful if you plan for users to find and join your group on their own and should contain essential information about the group (limited to 300 characters). However, a description is not necessary.
Additionally, you will need to choose an access level for your group. Most groups created for school use (e.g. courses, team projects, etc.), and any group, for that matter, which may have student work posted to it (e.g. reflections, assignments, projects, etc.), should be set to Restricted so as to meet FERPA requirements.
Once finished filling out this form, click the Create my group button.
