O3-A2:  group formation tool is ready to use

Milestone O3-A2.2 and A2.3 document (issued  March 2019):

Essential parts of the competencies defined as Open Virtual Mobility include inter-cultural and inter-personal competencies. Thus, for the provided learning courses (MOOCS) on level 3 peer activities are designed, for which the participants need to be put into learning groups. This is not done manually but by an optimization algorithm which is extended with a user-interface as a Moodle plugin, called mod_groupformation.

After a brief repetition about learning group formation theory, the requirements are listed and explained which are derived from earlier documents and the transnational partner meetings. Afterwards, the functionality of the plugin is explained from a user perspective refering back to the requirements. It will be explained, why a matching criterion based on country-of-origin is currently out of scope, even though it was desired (as non-critical) by partner organizations. The functionality of the underlying GroupAL algorithm is described to make clear, why at certain deadlines the group formation needs to take place (instead of continuously adding participants to groups). Finally, the installation process and requirements for proper use of the plugin are provided. The document closes with a conclusion and outlook about next steps and a possible evaluation process.

UPDATE: In the project’s learning hub the group formation is already integrated into the sub-MOOCs on advanced levels to optimize the experience of participants in MOOC group activities.