Guidelines for Requesting and Using Google Course Groups at UMD

These guidelines are designed for University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) instructors to request groups for class

Note: the guidelines here are for requesting Google Course groups - to use for classes. You can also request groups for UM groups (such as committees) and for personal groups: To request a Google group for an official UM group that is NOT a course, go to Requesting a Group To request a personal group, go to Personal Group Request page

Requesting Google Group for your classes

1. Go to the UMD page to request an official Google Course Group
2. The courses that you are teaching will be listed. To request a course group for a course, select the Create Course Group for that course
3. Once you have requested a course group, you will receive an email notifying you that your group has been created (this can take one business day, but is usually much faster). Once your group has been created, when  return to the official Google Group request page, links to your course group will be listed there. Example, this is what mine looks like:
   

Accessing & using your groups

1. Go to the the UMD Groups page (Note: If you want to set up a new, non-course related Google group (such as for a committee, departmental program, organization) you can set up one here by clicking on the “New” button, but these guidelines are about accessing and using your course groups)
2. Click on the “My Groups” button (or link to “My groups” in the left-hand column): This will show a list of any UMD groups of which you are a part, including your Course groups. If you are the group manager (which you are for your course groups), you will see in small print below the group name that lists you as group manager and also a link that you can click on to manage the settings for your group. See example from my own groups:
   
   
   
3. To find out what the email alias name is for your group (and other info about the group), click on the “About” link (see screen shot below)
   
   
   
4. This takes you to a page that shows you the email alias along with other information about the group:
   
   
   
5. To change the email settings (including adding a footer to your emails that go to this group), click on the “manage” button:
   
   
   This takes you to a screen that shows a list of all group members (your students) and also options of management settings on the left column.
   
6. Under the left column, click on “Settings” and under that, “email options.” Here you can select from various options (should you choose to -- you can also leave the default settings which has these blank).  Included in these is an option to put a footer message at the bottom of emails that go to this group.
   
   
7. Controlling who may email the group: By default, all groups members may email the list. Some instructors prefer only the instructor may email the list. If this is the case, the setting needs to be changed in the "Manage" area.