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What are Organisations and how to request one - Staff Guide

Organisations are almost identical to modules in Minerva and are often referred to as Orgs. You can use the same tools and content types that are available in modules.

The main differences are the terminology used for enrolled users, members who do not have a staff role are shown as participants.

Whilst Organisations can be made available/unavailable, they can not be hidden from students in Minerva, so please only request areas you intend to use.

What is their purpose?

Organisations can be used for any learning and teaching purpose that isn’t already covered by an existing Minerva module. Examples include Faculties, Schools & Programmes of study.

How can I access an organisation?

The Global Navigation menu has a link to the Organisations page. This lists the organisations you are enrolled on, these are separated into categories by the role you have on the organisation.

Requesting an organisation

1. Organisations based on Faculties, School & Programmes of Study

Orgs based on faculties and schools are automatically generated.

Orgs based on programmes of study will be automatically created if they existed in the previous academic year, for example, an organisation that existed in 202223 will be recreated for 202324. If you need a new organisation that didn't exist in the previous academic year they can be created on request via the IT Service Desk. When requesting a programme please provide the following information to help generate the correct organisation:

  • the name as displayed in Banner
  • the programme code

You can use programme organisations to send announcements (with or without email) to the whole membership of that organisation.

How are students enrolled?

Students are automatically enrolled on these types of organisations based on their record in Banner (student administration system). They are shown as participants.

How are staff enrolled?

Staff requiring leader and assistant access can request this through their Faculty Learning Technologists or via the Request staff editing rights form available on the IT Services website. Once enrolled as a leader/assistant you will have permissions to be able to manually enrol participants using their University username. See manually enrol users for guidance on how to enrol participants.

2. Bespoke organisations

Bespoke organisations can be requested through your Faculty Learning Technologists contact or the IT Service Desk. Let us know what you would like to use it for and what you would like it to be called. We will need the University usernames of any staff members that require staff level access. All enrolments will be manually managed and once enrolled you will be able to manually enrol participants using their University username. See manually enrol users for guidance on how to enrol participants.

If you require 20 or more participants enrolling at one time see the bulk enrolment section in the enrol users guide.

If you would like to enable the 'self enrolment' feature for your organisation, please mention this in your request. We will enable the feature and provide you with a link that you can share with students to allow them to self enrol as participants. The option to self enrol may be permanently enabled or restricted to a specific time period and/or protected by a passcode of your choice.

Removing enrolments

For most organisations this will be done automatically.

Whilst you can manually enrol users as participants, you cannot remove them manually, please contact the IT Service Desk to request a removal.

Adding staff to organisations

For all organisation types, you will not be able to manually enrol users with any role other than participant. For staff level access please contact your Faculty Learning Technologists or the Request staff editing rights form available on the IT Services website.

Methods of communication with participants

  • You can use programme organisations to send announcements (with or without email) to the whole membership of that organisation.
  • It is not possible to only email an organisation through Minerva.

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