Course groups and end of year procedures

[kristin_bayless]

Does anyone give direction to their teachers about course groups at the end of a term/year?

We're a K-12 district.  With no permission limitations on groups and per Instructure End of Year documentation, which says:

Groups- Even though courses are concluded the groups in courses are not, so students will still be able to access those unless they are removed from the group.

I'm wondering if anyone gives their teachers specific instructions and if so, what you recommend?  Has anyone had any problems related to students left in groups indefinitely even though the course term is expired?

[codom]

 @kristin_bayless ‌ - I'm in a similar spot here--as I've found groups to be independent of courses. I'm thinking of either removing the students from the groups--or deleting the groups via the API--but I'm concerned about any assignments that were submitted as group assignments and what will happen with those. I'm going to do some testing later this week and I'll let you know what I find and what I end up doing. 

The reason why I want to get rid of them is that they can create issues with student to student messaging--in particular in grades 3-8. If I can at least limit it to this year's courses, that makes it easier to manage for our administrators.

[kristin_bayless · Accepted solution]

 @codom1 ‌

I had a conversation with our Instructure CSM about the groups issue at the end of the year and she brought in one of the implementation managers, Elijah Amodt.  He said that enabling the root level setting of "Restrict students from accessing courses after end date" will prevent students from using the groups and the messaging, but will not prevent them from accessing the course to get their grades.  He pointed out that the root setting differs from the course setting of "Restrict students from viewing course after end date", which would prevent the students from accessing the course.  I haven't had a chance to test this, but Eli said that he had tested and it solved this issue.