Learner Group Management

Epic summary

The Learner Group Management workspace divides the learners assigned to a cohort phase plan into stable operational groups.

Examples include:

practical groups;
tutorial groups;
clinical rotation groups;
seminar groups; and
another institute-approved academic group type.

Phase-plan participants
  -> Learner groups
      -> Course component audiences
      -> Clinical department rotations
      -> Timetable and attendance audiences

The group is not a curriculum phase, cohort, department, or programme enrolment. It is an operational grouping of learners for dated academic delivery.

Before you start

The following must already exist:

a cohort phase plan that is Ready for Detailed Planning or Active;
an actual phase roster, or an expressly marked projected roster for Draft planning;
permitted learner-group types;
any curriculum component that requires a particular group type; and
the applicable group-size and delivery-capacity rules.

Groups may be prepared from projected learners, but they remain Draft and cannot receive published assignments until their membership is reconciled with actual phase participants.

Actors and access

Access source	Access in this epic
Institute member with Academic Registrar role	Oversees phase-level grouping policy and resolves exceptional learner placement
Institute member with Phase Coordinator role	Creates, generates, reviews, activates, and closes learner groups for the assigned phase plan
Institute member with Course Coordinator role	Views and uses the groups permitted by assigned course components; cannot rewrite unrelated group membership
Institute member with Clinical Posting Coordinator role	Uses active clinical groups for rotation planning and requests an authorised adjustment where required
Department Admin	Views groups assigned to the department’s courses or postings and confirms capacity concerns
Faculty	Views learners in groups connected to assigned teaching or supervision
Student	Views only their own active group assignments when released
Auditor role	Reads generation inputs, membership changes, locks, reasons, and history

Administrative scope alone does not permit moving a learner between academic groups. The user also needs the applicable functional capability.

Group lifecycle

Draft
  -> Reconciled
  -> Active
  -> Closed

Draft membership may be generated and adjusted during planning.
Reconciled means every expected learner is accounted for and group rules pass.
Active allows the group to be used by operational academic records.
Closed prevents new operational assignments while preserving history.

A Draft group may be Cancelled. An Active group is not deleted because sessions, postings, attendance, or evidence may depend on it.

Workspace structure

The workspace contains:

Group Sets
Generate Groups
Group Membership
Balance and Validation
Locks and Manual Changes
Activation and History

Screen 1: Group Sets

A group set collects groups of the same purpose within one phase plan.

Examples:

Phase I Practical Groups
├── Practical A
├── Practical B
├── Practical C
└── Practical D

Phase II Clinical Groups
├── Clinical A
├── Clinical B
├── Clinical C
├── Clinical D
└── Clinical E

Field	Required	What the user defines
Cohort phase plan	Yes	Phase whose participants may belong to the groups
Group-set name and code	Yes	Clear institute identity for this grouping
Group type	Yes	Practical, tutorial, clinical rotation, seminar, or another controlled type
Purpose	Yes	Academic work for which the groups may be used
Membership basis	Yes	Actual phase roster or projected roster for Draft planning
Exclusive membership	Yes	Whether a learner may belong to more than one active group in this set
Target group size	Conditional	Preferred number of learners in each group
Maximum group size	Conditional	Hard limit resolved from curriculum, capacity, safety, or institute policy
Effective dates	Yes	Period in which the group set can be used
Status	Yes	Draft, Reconciled, Active, Closed, or Cancelled

A learner may belong to one practical group and one clinical group at the same time because they are different group sets. Within an exclusive clinical group set, the learner belongs to only one active main clinical group.

Screen 2: Generate Groups

The user selects how the initial grouping should be prepared.

Generation inputs

eligible phase-plan participants;
requested number of groups or target group size;
maximum group size;
naming pattern;
allocation order;
existing memberships to preserve;
learners who must remain together or separate where an authorised academic reason exists; and
balancing tolerance.

Supported allocation orders

roll-number order;
alphabetical order;
seeded random distribution; or
manual allocation.

The selected method and random seed, where used, are retained so the result can be explained and reproduced.

The generator aims for approximately equal groups. It does not assume exact equality when the learner count is not divisible by the number of groups.

For example:

127 learners across four clinical groups

Clinical A — 32
Clinical B — 32
Clinical C — 32
Clinical D — 31

The user reviews the proposal before any membership becomes Active.

Screen 3: Group Membership

Each group shows:

group code and name;
group type and purpose;
current and maximum size;
effective dates;
member student number and name;
original cohort where relevant;
student phase assignment;
membership source;
membership start and end dates;
lock state; and
operational records already using the membership.

The user can search, move, add, or end a membership when authorised. A learner cannot be added unless they are an eligible participant in the same phase plan.

Screen 4: Balance and Validation

The screen identifies:

eligible learners not assigned to a required group set;
learners assigned more than once in an exclusive set;
group-size differences outside the permitted tolerance;
groups exceeding maximum capacity;
Draft memberships that do not match the actual phase roster;
ended or suspended phase participants still assigned to future work;
active sessions or postings affected by a proposed move; and
group dates outside the phase plan.

Balance is a planning preference unless a maximum or policy limit makes it mandatory. A difference of one learner between groups is ordinarily acceptable when the total is not evenly divisible.

Screen 5: Locks and Manual Changes

Membership may be locked because:

a published timetable uses the group;
a clinical rotation has been confirmed;
attendance or delivery already exists;
an authorised accommodation must be preserved; or
an Academic Registrar or Phase Coordinator has deliberately protected the assignment.

A manual change records:

learner;
earlier and new group;
effective date;
reason code and explanation;
affected future sessions and postings;
required approval; and
actor and recorded time.

The system does not rewrite earlier attendance, posting, or session audiences. A dated membership change affects only permitted future work.

Screen 6: Activation and History

A group set can become Reconciled when:

every eligible learner is accounted for;
no exclusive-membership conflict remains;
maximum-size rules pass;
every Draft learner is reconciled to an actual phase participant; and
unresolved exceptions have an authorised owner and approval.

Activation makes the groups available to course offerings and posting plans. Closing the group set prevents new assignments but does not remove it from earlier sessions or rotations.

History shows generation runs, membership proposals, manual changes, imports, locks, approvals, activations, closures, and the operational records affected by each change.

Clinical groups and unit subgroups

Learner Group Management creates the stable main clinical groups that rotate across departments.

Clinical Group A
Clinical Group B
Clinical Group C
Clinical Group D

It does not permanently create every unit subgroup. When Clinical Group A reaches General Medicine, Clinical Posting Planning may divide it according to the units and capacity available for that posting:

Clinical Group A — General Medicine
├── A1 → Medicine Unit 1
├── A2 → Medicine Unit 2
└── A3 → Medicine Unit 3

The same group may split differently in Surgery. Those posting-specific subgroup memberships belong to the clinical-posting assignment and do not change the learner’s main clinical group.

Use case 1: Create a learner group set

As a Phase Coordinator
I want to define the type and purpose of a group set
So that learners can be organised consistently for academic planning.

Acceptance criteria

The group set belongs to one phase plan and one controlled group type.
Effective dates remain within the phase plan.
Target size and maximum size are shown separately.
Exclusive membership is explicit rather than assumed.
Projected-roster grouping is visibly Draft and cannot be published as an actual learner assignment.

Use case 2: Generate balanced groups

As a Phase Coordinator
I want to generate approximately balanced groups from the phase roster
So that I do not have to assign every learner manually.

Acceptance criteria

Only eligible phase participants are included.
The user can choose group count or target size, subject to maximum capacity.
Existing locked memberships are preserved.
The system explains the allocation order and retains the random seed where applicable.
Unequal groups are allowed when mathematically necessary and remain within tolerance.
Generation creates a reviewable proposal rather than activating membership automatically.

Use case 3: Review and adjust membership

As a Phase Coordinator
I want to adjust a proposed group while seeing its impact
So that authorised academic or operational needs can be accommodated safely.

Acceptance criteria

A learner cannot belong to two groups in an exclusive set for overlapping dates.
Maximum capacity cannot be exceeded.
Moving a learner shows affected sessions, postings, and timetable entries.
Locked membership cannot be moved without the required authority and reason.
Effective-dated changes do not rewrite earlier operational history.

Use case 4: Reconcile projected groups with actual learners

As an Academic Registrar
I want to reconcile Draft groups after actual phase assignments are known
So that operational schedules use valid learner identities.

Acceptance criteria

Draft projected entries are matched to actual programme enrolments and phase participants.
Unmatched, additional, and withdrawn learners are shown separately.
The system proposes the smallest membership changes needed to restore balance.
The user reviews changes before they become effective.
The original projection and reconciliation result remain in history.

Use case 5: Activate learner groups

As a Phase Coordinator
I want to activate a reconciled group set
So that course and clinical schedulers can use it.

Acceptance criteria

Every required learner is assigned exactly once where the group set is exclusive.
Group limits and dates pass validation.
Every membership references an actual phase participant.
Activation records the actor, time, validation result, and any approved exception.
Course offerings and posting plans can select only Active groups.

Use case 6: Change an active group membership

As an Academic Registrar
I want to make an effective-dated learner-group change
So that future delivery reflects an authorised learner movement without corrupting history.

Acceptance criteria

The change has a reason, effective date, impact preview, and required approval.
Earlier attendance and posting records keep their original group context.
Future affected allocations are updated only through their owning workflow.
Conflicting active memberships are prevented.
The complete before-and-after membership remains auditable.

Important business rules

A learner group belongs to one cohort phase plan.
Group membership references actual phase-plan participants before activation.
Group types and group sets remain separate: Clinical Group A and Practical Group A may contain different learners.
Approximate balance is expected; exact equality is not assumed.
Maximum capacity is a hard rule, while target size is ordinarily a preference.
The group generator proposes membership and never activates it automatically.
Active membership changes are effective-dated and do not rewrite earlier records.
Main clinical groups are stable rotation groups; unit subgroups are posting-specific allocations.

Conceptual schema

Record	Important fields
`academic.learner_group_set`	tenant, institute, phase plan, code/name, group type, purpose, membership basis, exclusive flag, target/max size, dates, status
`academic.learner_group`	group set, code/name, sequence, target/max size, status
`academic.learner_group_membership`	group, phase-plan participant, start/end dates, source, state, lock state
`academic.group_generation_run`	group set, roster snapshot, method, parameters, random seed, locked inputs, result summary, actor, run at
`academic.group_generation_proposal`	run, phase-plan participant, proposed group, warning, result
`academic.group_membership_change`	membership, earlier/new group, effective date, reason, impact snapshot, approval, actor
`academic.group_state_event`	group or set, earlier/new state, actor, reason, recorded at

Process-layer responsibilities

The process layer:

resolves eligible learners from the authoritative phase-plan roster;
keeps projected grouping separate from activated actual membership;
generates approximately balanced groups within target, maximum, lock, and tolerance rules;
retains deterministic inputs and random seeds so a generation result can be explained;
prevents overlapping duplicate membership in an exclusive group set;
validates effective dates against the phase plan and participant dates;
detects the operational impact of a proposed membership change;
protects locked and historically used memberships;
applies authorised changes prospectively without rewriting earlier records;
exposes only Active groups to course and posting planning; and
keeps posting-specific unit subgroup allocations outside the stable group model.

Success outcome

Every learner required for group-based delivery is placed in a valid, understandable, and auditable phase-level group that course and clinical schedulers can use safely.