Is Google Groups for Google Apps different from the free version of Google Groups?
Yes. The service is similar to the free version but designed to work within the educational domain. For example, we can limit the members of your group to those who have a UAHuntsville e-mail account (@uah.edu) while the free version has no defined limits. Also, we have our own Groups Directory that only shows the groups within the university domain. Another difference is that you are not allowed to upload files or pages to our version of Google Groups. However, you can do upload them into Google Documents or Google Sites and share them with your group members.