Exercise Variants
Courses often offer the same task in several versions: a programming exercise in two languages, a quiz in an easy and a hard flavor, or the same problem set in different application domains. An exercise variant group ties those versions together so that Artemis treats them as one task instead of several independent exercises.
A variant group gives you:
- One shared timeline. Release, start, due, assessment due and example solution publication date are set once on the group and apply to every variant.
- One points budget. The group caps how many points its variants can contribute to the course score, so offering three versions of a task does not triple what students can earn.
- One entry for students. Students see the group as a single item in the exercise list and pick the variant they want to work on. See Exercise Variants in the student documentation.
The Exercise Management Page
The course's Exercises page in course management holds every exercise of the course, and the view switch in its header decides how they are bucketed:
| View | What it shows |
|---|---|
| List | A flat table of every exercise in the course |
| Type | One card per exercise type (programming, quiz, modeling, text, file upload) |
| Week | One card per calendar week, based on the exercise dates |
| Group | One card per variant group, plus an Ungrouped card for everything else |
The search bar filters across all views, rows can be multi-selected for bulk actions, and each row carries the usual actions — Participations, Scores, Edit and Delete — plus the type-specific ones.
Creating a Variant Group
There are two ways to create a group:
- From the header: click Create and choose Exercise Group. You give the group a name, an optional points cap and its timeline, then add exercises to it.
- While generating a variant with AI: the wizard can create a new group holding the source exercise and the generated variant. See Generate Variants with AI.
In the Group view you can also drag an exercise from one card onto another to move it between groups.
The Shared Timeline
The group owns the timeline of all its variants. Open Edit group on a group card to change it.
Two rules follow from this:
- Group dates override individual exercise dates. When an exercise joins a group, or when you change the group's timeline, the group's dates are written onto every member exercise — including empty ones, which clear the exercise's own date. The exception is the first exercise to join an empty group: every date the group does not have yet is first taken from that exercise, so a group with a blank Release Date adopts its first member's release date instead of making that exercise unreleased.
- Member exercises show a timeline lock. In the edit form of an exercise that belongs to a group, the date fields are read-only and display the group's dates. Edit the group to change them.
Artemis validates a new timeline against all member exercises before saving anything, so an invalid change (for example a due date before the release date, or a date that conflicts with an exercise that has already started) is rejected without leaving the group half-updated.
Removing an exercise from a group leaves its dates as they are; from then on you manage them on the exercise itself.
The Points Cap
Max points on the group caps the total contribution of the group to the course score. A student who works on several variants has their points summed and then capped at this value, so the group counts like a single exercise.
Leave the field empty for no cap. An exercise outside a group is scored on its own.
Deleting a Group
Delete group removes the group only. Its exercises are kept and become ungrouped, with the dates they had at that moment. You are asked to type the group name to confirm.
Reusing Variants in Another Course
The Import tab of the exercise dialog imports exercises one type at a time; there is no course-level import of a whole variant group. To reuse a set of variants, import the exercises into the new course and create a group for them there.
Variant Groups in Exams
Exams have their own exercise groups, and they serve a related but different purpose: when the student exams are generated, Artemis assigns each registered student exactly one exercise from every mandatory exam exercise group and from as many optional groups as the exam's Number of exercises in exam requires. That is how an exam gives different students different but equivalent tasks.
In exam management you can create groups, move exercises between them, and generate a variant of an exam exercise with AI — the variant automatically joins the source exercise's group and inherits the exam's timing.