While the following list of group-aware tools in Sakai is not exhaustive, it contains typically useful examples for using groups in Sakai.

• Resources
• Email Sender
• Assignments
• Tests & Quizzes
• Discussions

Objective: Make specific content or entire folders of content visible only to selected groups.

Instructions: In the main view of the Resources tool, click on the 'Actions' menu for a particular resource or folder and select 'Edit Details'. Then in the 'Edit Details' view, you can choose to restrict the display of this folder or file to selected groups through the controls under the heading 'Availability and Access'.

See also How do I create a group folder in Resources?

Objective: Send emails directed solely to members of one or more select groups.

Instructions: In the Email Sender's view for composing an email, click on the 'Groups' link. It will display the list of groups in your course which you can select for recipients of your email, all of whom are blind-copied, such that the recipients will not see the email addresses of other recipients.

See also How do I send an email message?.

Objective: If you have an assignment to deliver to multiple course sections, but details such as the due date differ depending on the course section of students, you can create representative assignments in the Assignments tool to be delivered to distinct groups.

Instructions: To create a group-specific assignment, click 'Add' in the Assignments tool's main view to create a new assignment. Then under the 'Access' heading of the 'Add new assignment' view, click the 'Display to selected groups' option. Then select the group(s) to whom you want to give this assignment—assuming you have also set the appropriate due dates, instructions, etc. for the assignment.

See also How do I add an assignment? Another use case which is different from the one above is described in How do I enable group submissions for an assignment?

Objective: Release a learning assessment to members of one or more select groups. Motivations for doing so are similar to those mentioned above for delivering group-specific assignments—e.g., due dates differ depending on the course section.

Instructions: For a particular assessment in the 'Working Assessments' list of the 'Assessments' view of the Tests & Quizzes tool, choose 'Settings' in the '-- Select Action --' drop-down menu. Then, under the heading 'Availability and Submissions' section, look for the "Assessment released to" menu and choose 'Selected Group(s)'. Then, choose the group(s) to whom you want to give this assessment. Of course, in order for the assessment to be released, it must be published.

Warning: If you are releasing an assessment to one or more groups and this set of students only constitutes a subset of the entire Sakai site and if the the assessment is to count toward the course grade in Gradebook, you will most likely need to take precautions with the Gradebook feature, Set Zero Score for Empty Cells so as to avoid adversely affecting the calculation of students’ course grades. For more details and guidance regarding this, refer to the article, How should I handle gradebook items not pertinent to the entire class?

See also What are the Availability and Submissions options for an assessment?

Objective: Limit the visibility to or permissions for a particular Topic to a specific group.

Instructions: See the section "Automatically create topics for groups" in How do I add a new topic?

See also What is the Discussion tool?