Organizing group work

Due to the seperate area, in which students can organize their work independently, classic group presentations can be productively implemented. For example, an OnlyOffice-Page can be integrated, which allows individual members of the group to work together on a document. There you can also store information relevant to the topic for your students. Group members themselves can easily upload and download files in the group. Detailed instructions on how to create and configure a group in OpenOlat from a technical perspective can be found in the user manual under “Create Groups”. The possible course elements in the group can be configured under Administration and under Tools and made available to group members (see Fig. 1).

In the OpenOlat user manual, you will find a description of the group tools from the participant's perspective and how you can activate them as a group supervisor.

Note: Students generally do not have the necessary authorizations (“authoring rights”) to create their own courses in OpenOlat. Therefore, the configuration of a group in your course is essential to give students the possibility of self-organized group work in OpenOlat. A lesser known option is that students have the possibility to create their own groups in OpenOlat. They can choose which tools should be available in the group room.

All information about groups in OpenOlat can be found on this page of the DL-Portal (In German).

Presentations are a central component of group work in many subjects in the humanities branch. OpenOlat offers the possibility to structure and organize these universally and individually. In addition to the “groups” as places for independent work, there is the option of assigning each presentation its own structure module, for example. Within this structure module, different visibility authorizations can be defined under the configuration item “Visibility”: While everything would be visible to the unit group, other participants could only view the “kick-off document”, the handout folder and the feedback sheet. Visibility can be adapted to the needs of the unit groups in the course element configurations. With the course Forum and Folder course elements, OpenOlat offers the unit participants in the groups the opportunity to work and discuss independently in a protected space that is only accessible to them.

Reading texts often forms the basis of seminars. Important texts are usually distributed at the beginning and read independently by students. The work in the seminar occasionally suffers because texts are forgotten or there is not enough preparation time to develop an in-depth understanding of the ideas presented. One solution to this challenge may be to use group work. Longer texts could be assigned to fixed groups in the seminar. Experts for the respective text sections can also be appointed in the groups. The groups can then present the results in the seminar and discuss them with all seminar participants. This usually increases student participation and makes the start of the discussion smoother.

In particularly text-intensive seminars, there could also be fixed groups for the entire semester. Each group prepares the texts together. The small groups either receive different texts each week or different guiding questions about the text. Each week, a different person in the small group is responsible for the preparation and uploads a thesis paper as a Word document to a folder set up for this purpose in the course or in the group by a specified date. The other members comment on and add to this text in the shared OnlyOffice file. A selected person from the group then develops the final version from all the notes in the same document.

In both cases, all seminar participants have access to the finished handouts for the texts they have read in one place, so that they can use them for exam preparation or later in their studies, for example.

A fundamental exercise for students of art history is the description of works of art and architecture.

In individual groups, the “image description” exercise can be beneficial, as it allows different perspectives and insights to be gathered for the subsequent discussion. This makes it easy to gather initial impressions and at the same time positively influences the dynamics in the seminar. Here you can see what a possible group task that you can provide on OpenOlat could look like:

Example task: In your group, describe the painting “The Small Morning” by the artist Philipp Otto Runge and, if necessary, record your findings in writing.

• What do you see? (Basic description)
• What do you notice?
• What colors can you identify?
• What compositional means did the artist use?
• What associations does the painting evoke in you?

You can provide this task in an OnlyOffice Document or the HTML-page page course element.

The relatively new “Projects” function enables your students to work in OpenOlat in a self-organized way. Students can also create projects independently, which, in contrast to the “group function”, can be done with just a few clicks and therefore represents a clear advantage.

Projects offers students:

• A learning environment, both for individual and group-based work
• Practical collaboration tools for real-time editing of documents such as PowerPoint and Word files
• A structured and organized distribution of tasks through “to-dos”.
• Central storage of important documents, scans and images in one place
• The option to create mind maps with the whiteboard tool for targeted topic guidance.

Projects are independent of courses and therefore offer a protected teaching and learning space for students, which can also be used after the end of a seminar. The function also enables the processing and organization of long-term tasks. These include learning diaries, seminar papers and B.A. and M.A. theses.

Based on the peer feedback principle, students have the opportunity to work in groups throughout the semester, for example to make corrections or give feedback to each other when writing seminar texts. The usual presentations can also be excellently organized and worked on together. With the help of the integrated OnlyOffice program, they can work collaboratively on a PowerPoint presentation or bullet points, coordinate deadlines and document decisions.

Fig. 3: Example of a project in OpenOlat

For a quick and easy-to-understand introduction to the projects, we recommend using the instructions, which you can find below. It explains the basic functions and how to set up a project for your students so that they can organize their learning activities independently. Further information on the topic of projects can be found in the OpenOlat manual at this link.

The potential for cooperative and individual work in the project function is particularly high. You are therefore welcome to provide your students with our specially prepared text in your next seminars.

To the instructions (pdf)

To the video tutorial

Dear students,

I would like to recommend that you use the project function in OpenOlat for your upcoming seminar paper/group work/etc.. The structured layout and various functions should help you to cope with the upcoming tasks in the seminar. Attached you will find the PDF from the DL office with recommendations and instructions for the project function, which can be used with just a few clicks.

Yours sincerely