Skip to content

Student groups that maintain themselves

A group that keeps up on its own

StudyDrome Exam Manager holds two kinds of student groups. A static group is a list you pick by hand, and it can nest under a parent. A dynamic group stores criteria instead: eight of them, combined with a single All or Any switch. Its membership is recomputed every time it is read.

Book a pilot

What is the difference between a static and a dynamic group?

A group is one of two kinds, and you choose which when you create it.

Kind

How membership is decided

Static

You pick the students by hand. The list is the group.

Dynamic

You set criteria. StudyDrome works out who matches, every time the group is read.

The kind is fixed at creation. A static group cannot carry criteria, and a dynamic group cannot be saved without them. Both are refused at the point of creation, so a half-built group never exists.

A student can belong to several groups at once. A year group, a course group, and a tag-driven group can all hold the same person, and none of them conflicts with the others.

Groups outlast the exam they were built for. The same group can be an exam audience, a course audience and a calendar audience.

Which criteria can a dynamic group use?

Eight criteria are available, and one group can combine any of them.

Criterion

Picks students by

Academic level

The level they are registered at.

Course

Enrolment on a named course.

Tags

Any tag held on the student record.

Lifecycle stage

The stage they have reached in your student lifecycle.

Follow-up status

The status set by whoever is following up on them.

Lead source

How they first reached you.

Referral source

Who sent them.

Communication preference

The channel they agreed to.

One switch decides how the criteria combine. All (AND) means a student must meet every criterion you set. Any (OR) means one match is enough. The default is All.

Enrolment status is checked before any criterion runs. Only active students are considered, so anyone who leaves drops out of every dynamic group at once, with no one editing anything.

The course criterion reads live enrolment rather than a copied list. Change who is enrolled in the course, and the group changes accordingly.

How do you build a dynamic group?

  1. 1

    Open People, then Students, then the "Groups" tab. That is where groups live.

  2. 2

    Choose "Create Student Group" and name it. Pick the kind: a static group takes two steps, and a dynamic one takes three.

  3. 3

    Set the criteria. Each of the eight has a picker of its own, and you use as many or as few as you need.

  4. 4

    Choose how they combine: "All (AND)" if a student must match every one, "Any (OR)" if one match is enough.

  5. 5

    Run the preview. It lists the students who match right now, twenty at a time, sorted by last name.

  6. 6

    Save. From then on the group answers with whoever matches at the moment you ask it.

How do static groups nest?

A static group can hold other groups. Switch on "Allow Sub-Groups," and it starts accepting children, so a faculty group can sit above a year group, which sits above a seminar group.

Field

What it does

Allow Sub-Groups

Lets a group accept child groups.

Parent Group

Files a new group under an existing one — "Leave empty to create a root-level group."

Ask a parent group for its members, and the answer walks the whole tree, not just the level below. One request returns the faculty.

Sibling groups sort in an order you set rather than alphabetically, so the list reads the way your program is actually laid out.

Nesting belongs to static groups. A dynamic group stands on its own, because its criteria already describe the set — a parent above it would be describing the same students a second time.

What does the group model guarantee?

A cohort that quietly goes out of date is worse than no cohort at all. These are the properties you can rely on.

  • Membership is computed when the group is read. A dynamic group is never out of date because there is no stored list to fall behind.

  • The preview runs the same evaluator the saved group will use, so what you see before saving is what you get after it.

  • A group's kind is fixed at creation. No group is ever half static and half dynamic.

  • Only students with an active enrollment are considered, and that check runs before any criterion.

  • Static groups nest, and asking a parent for its members walks the whole tree in one request.

  • One group serves many purposes. The same group can be an exam audience, a course audience, and a calendar audience.

Who needs student groups for exams?

  • Exam offices assemble a single audience from several years or courses.

  • Registrars who want a group that follows enrollment rather than a spreadsheet that follows nobody.

  • Program leads running the same exam for one academic level, term after term.

  • Anyone rebuilding the same list by hand at the start of every intake.

Frequently asked questions

How do you assign an exam to a group of students?

Add the group to the exam's audience while you build the test. An audience is composed of several sources that combine together, and named student groups are one of them. Because a dynamic group resolves when it is read, the audience reflects who matches at that moment rather than who matched on the day you set it up.

What is a dynamic student group?

A group that stores criteria instead of a member list. You set the rules once (academic level, course, tags, and five more) and choose whether a student must match all of them or any one of them. Membership is calculated each time the group is read, so it keeps up with enrollment without anyone maintaining it.

Can a student be in more than one group?

Yes, and it is the normal case. A student can sit in a year group, a course group, and a tag-driven group simultaneously. Groups are independent of one another, so adding somebody to one never removes them from another. Overlapping groups are how most exam audiences get assembled.

How does a group keep up as students enroll and leave?

A dynamic group has nothing to keep up with, because it holds no list. Every read runs the criteria again. Enrollment status is checked first, so somebody who is no longer active drops out of every dynamic group at once. A static group is a hand-picked list and changes when you change it.

Can student groups be nested?

Static groups can. Switch on "Allow Sub-Groups" and a group starts accepting children, so a faculty group can sit above year groups. Ask a parent for its members, and the answer walks the whole tree rather than one level down. A dynamic group stands on its own, because its criteria already describe the set.

Book a pilot

Bring the list you rebuild every term. We will turn it into a rule, run the preview against your own students, and show you what it returns.

Book a pilot

Related