In OLAT there are three types of groups:
Project Groups
Learning Groups
Right Groups
Each OLAT user sees the goups he owns or participates in on his "Home" page as well as when opening the tab "Groups".
Groups dispose of different tools that can be allocated by the group's owner. This owner decides if there should be group members with administration rights (owner or tutor) who provide announcements for all members on a special information page; who can send e-mails via contact form; who provide a forum or chat room. The owner or tutor can furthermore determine whether there should be a folder in order to store files.
A project group facilitates team work outside the course's context. Each OLAT user can initiate a group with the members he wants to join, invite others or cancel his invitation to join the group. The only condition is that the others are OLAT users as well. You create your project group in the tab "Groups" by means of the tool "Create" "Project group". These groups can be provided with different tools according to your needs, such as forum and/or storage folder (disk space).
Examples for project groups are:
Study group: Students can discuss learning content or exchange files.
Author group: Authors work together to create a file; only the final version should be stored in learning resources as learning content.
Publication group: Scientists work together to get the results published later on.
Being course author you can create groups students have to enrol for or you can create groups and enter the students' names by yourself. These groups related to a course are called learning groups in OLAT. You determine how many members your group shall have. You can furthermore assign that group to some tutors. They will be able to administer your learning group, which means that they can admit new members and appoint other tutors. During the course you can create learning groups by means of the tool box "Course tools" "Group management". Several learning groups can be brought together in one learning area. More detailed information can be found at Operating a Course.
Being the course author you can allocate other OLAT users certain rights by inviting them to your right group. You have the possibility to admit all OLAT users (auhors, students) to a right group independently of the roles they play inside OLAT. The rights you can assign to such a group are: manage learning groups, edit your course, archive data, and assess other participants. Right groups can be created during the course by means of the tool box "Course tools" "Right management". For further information go to Operating a Course.