Group formation

Formation of optimized learning groups – by topic preference or best match of individuals’ charatceristics and preferences; in one easy to use Moodle acticity; languages available: German, English
To provide a better learning experience the group formation plugin offers a great possibilities to optimize the composition of learning groups working together on the assigned (or selected) tasks.
It is designed to cover three most frequent and relevant scenarios required in university courses. Depending on the selected scenario, the plugin uses three different approaches by generating dynamic questionnaires. The questionnaires inquire several personal-dependent relevant criteria such as motivation, goal setting, character, team performance and prior knowledge.
The collected data is used by the GroupAL algorithm to form groups optimizing the learning outcome for all participants in all groups.
Following three scenarios are provided:
Project teams – work intensively together to finish a project (e.g. conduct a study, delivery of a report, etc.).
Homework groups – complete (smaller) assignments in regular intervals (often weekly) as a preparation for examination.
Presentation groups – work together for a relatively short time period to finish a presentation (usually to be held in class).
At the Presentation groups scenario, the course executive has to define topics, which students sort to regarding their personal priority of interest.
To lower the effort barrier, group formation offers students to export/import their answers for reuse in other courses.
The questionnaires are available in English and German.
Installation/Admins
Before Installation
Make sure the Moodles cron job is running. The groupformation plugin will never start creating groups if cron is not running. Further information about the cron can be found here on  moodle.org
Installation
Unzip the zip file in the “mod” folder of the Moodle directory and,
if necessary, rename the folder to “groupformation”. Then visit your
Moodle server’s Site Administration -> Notifications page and Upgrade
Moodles database, — OR — Go to Administration > Site
Administration > Install add-ons to install the Groupformation module