Overview
Microsoft 365 Groups, previously known as Office 365 Groups, are automatically created for each section of each course at the beginning of a semester through a process called School Data Sync (SDS). These Course Groups are primarily for assigning access to videos in Microsoft Stream but they are also associated with a Microsoft Team and can be used with other Microsoft 365 services.
Warning: You can add view permissions for multiple Microsoft groups to a video in Stream if it meets FERPA standards.
Group Membership
- The Course/section Group will contain all students enrolled in that course and section.
- The course instructors will be automatically added as Group Owners (Teachers).
- Group membership is updated once every 24 hours. All members are deleted and re-added to capture student adds and drops. This is to maintain FERPA standards per the Registrar.
Warning: To allow instructors to delete conversations in Teams they are added as Group "Owners". Instructors will want to avoid adding accounts not enrolled in their course as it will violate FERPA restrictions.
The naming convention for a Course Group is based on the Canvas Course Name:
- Display Name = "Abbreviated Term Name[space]Course-Section:[space]Course Name"
- Example: "SP22 ITS101-01: Intro to Microsoft 365"
- The instructor can change the Display Name to any value they prefer.
- Group Name = "Section_termcode_crn@groups.uidaho.edu"
- Example: Section_202120_12345@groups.uidaho.edu
- Abbreviated Term Name Examples:
- F22 = Fall 2022
- SP23 = Spring 2023
- SU23 = Summer 2023
These additional settings are configured for new Groups.
- Group welcome message is disabled
- Group email is moderated by the instructor (Group Owners)
- Group is hidden from the Global Address List
- Membership is set to Private so only group members can see other members (FERPA protection) - HiddenGroupMembership