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Getting Started with Groups in Canvas

• Last modification date Updated On February 16, 2022
• Categories: Canvas , Groups
• Categories: collaboration , communication , content differentiation , Getting Started

Canvas  Groups  are a way for instructors to organize students within a course for group assignments, group discussions, or other collaborative work. The Groups tool creates course-like areas in Canvas that include the following navigational options:

• Announcements
• Discussions
• BigBlueButton (Formerly Conferences)
• Collaborations

Managing Group Sets

Managing groups, managing group enrollment, managing group activities & content.

A  Group Set  is a collection of groups. A new Group Set is needed for every assignment that calls for a new grouping of students. When getting started with Group Sets, learn to:

• Create a Group Set with the Canvas guide  How do I add a group set in a course?
• Edit a Group Set with the Canvas guide  How do I edit a group set in a course?

Do not delete a group set after submissions have been made by any group in that set.

Use unique group names in order to ensure students can identify which course the group is from, as all of their groups are listed in a single place outside of the course.

Do not delete a group after a submission has been made by that group.

Groups  are the specific groupings of students within a Group Set.  When getting started with Groups, learn to:

• Automatically create groups in a group set with the Canvas guide  How do I automatically create groups in a group set?
• Manually create groups in a group set with the Canvas guide  How do I manually create groups in a group set?
• Create self sign-up groups in a group set with the Canvas guide  How do I create self sign-up groups in a group set?
• Allow students to create groups with the Canvas guide  How do I allow students to create their own student groups?

Students can only belong to one group in a group set. This precludes them from taking part in group work or group discussions in Canvas in multiple groups for the same assignment/activity.

Do not change membership in a group after a submission has been made by that group.

When enrolling students in Groups, learn to:

• Automatically enroll students in groups with the Canvas guide  How do I automatically assign students to groups?
• Manually enroll students in groups with the Canvas guide  How do I manually assign students to groups?
• Assign a student leader to a group with the Canvas guide  How do I assign a student leader to a group?
• Change group enrollments with the Canvas guide  How do I move a student into a different group?
• Prevent students from changing self sign-up group enrollment with the Canvas guide  How do I prevent students from switching groups in self sign-up groups?

While students can manage their Group spaces in Canvas, instructors are able to generate activities for groups and view group content. When managing group activities and content, learn to:

• Grade Group Assignments in the SpeedGrader with the Canvas guide  How do I grade group assignments in SpeedGrader?
• Create a graded Group Discussion with the Canvas guide  How do I assign a graded discussion to a course group?
• View a group’s files with the Canvas guide  How do I view group files as an instructor?
• View a group’s content and student group activity with the Canvas guide  How do I view content and student activity within a group as an instructor?

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Creating a Group Assignment

Creating groups.

To create groups manually, go to:

How do I manually create groups in a group set?

To create groups automatically, go to:

How do I automatically create groups in a group set?

To import groups by csv, go to:

How do I import groups in a group set?

This documentation is also available via a How to Quickstart video: https://youtu.be/wUrDmD-t1-Y (Links to an external site.)

The first step is to create a group set. Group sets house the different groups within a course. When you create a group assignment or group discussion you would attach the group set to the group assignment to assign it to the groups within the group set.

1. Click People

2. Create a group set by clicking + Group Set

3. Name the Group Set

4. Choose whether you want to allow self sign up, have the groups automatically created or create groups manually. This example shows how to create groups manually.

5. Click Save

You can assign a student group leader to help manage a group within your course. You can assign group leaders automatically or manually. When students are assigned to be a group leader, they can manage members of the group and edit the group name. However, they cannot change the number of members in the group.

6. Click + Group to create a group. You will need to repeat this as many times as you need to create all the groups that you need.

7. Choose a group name.

8. Choose if you want to limit the number of students in a group.

9. Click Save

You will see the groups:

10. You can drag students into the groups or click the + sign to move the student into a group

11. Click the arrow beside the group name to see the students in the group

Canvas How-To: Groups

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Contact Information

Mary Stuart Rogers, MSR 380

Understanding Group Sets and Groups

Groups and Group Sets help instructors organize students into teams. At least one Group Set must exist before any Groups can be created.

A Brief Analogy

Group Set = A filing cabinet Group = A drawer in the filing cabinet Member = A hanging folder in the drawer

Important: Group activities in Canvas are assigned and associated with the filing cabinet , not the individual drawers (see below). Just as an office can have many filing cabinets, a Canvas course can have many Group Sets. Students can be members of multiple Group Sets but can be a member of only one group per set.

Create a Group Set

Open the People page  [1] . Next, click the "+ Group Set" button  [2] . Configure the group set.  It is not necessary to create the groups at this point.  The groups can be created later if necessary by returning to the People page and clicking the name of the Group Set above the course roster.

How do I add a group set in a course?

How do I manually create groups in a group set?

How do I manually assign students to groups?

Creating Groups and Assigning Students Automatically

Use the  Group Structure  area to specify how the groups will be structured, and where the students will be placed.

How do I automatically create groups in a group set?

Enabling Self-Sign Up Groups

Enabled students to join the group of their choosing by ticking the checkbox and setting the maximum number of people per group.

How do I create self sign-up groups in a group set?

Making an Assignment a Group Assignment

You can create a group assignment by using the  Group Assignment  checkbox. Canvas uses group sets to assign group assignments, and each group within the group set that is assigned to the assignment is required to complete the assignment.  All groups will complete the assignment using the same due date.

Note:  It is not possible to use individual groups as the basis for differentiated assignments, such as assigning an activity only to a single group or configuring unique due dates for specific groups.  Only Group Sets can receive special settings in assignments. 

How do I assign an assignment to a course group?

Making a Discussion a Group Discussion

You can create a single prompt and have groups to discuss it, either as a graded or ungraded activity.  Simple associate the discussion with an existing Group Set (or create a new one on-the-fly).

Be sure the Group Set has Groups before you open the discussion activity to students!

How to Create a Group Discussion

On the settings page of the discussion, check the box "This is a Group Discussion"  [1] . Then, open the Group Category menu to select the Group Set that will govern the group organization for the activity  [2] .  Alternatively, click the "New Group Category" button if you would like to create the Set to be used by the discussion.

Important:  Students must be placed into a Group in order to properly participate. Students who are not in a group can still post, but the posts are only visible to the instructor and other students not in a group.

How Students Participate in a Group Discussion

To participate, students click the link for the Discussion activity and begin posting.  They are automatically participating in their group and do not need to do anything special to "enter" or "join" the discussion.  Students cannot view other groups' posts.

How Instructors Monitor a Group Discussion

Instructors can get an overview of activity in the groups by opening the discussion activity link and viewing the information at the top of the page. New posts are indicated in the badges on the far right.  To view a group's discussion, click the link for the group on the left.

Viewing Another Group

After reading one group's discussion, click the "Home" link in the left navigation menu and then click the breadcrumb link for the course at the top of the page to return to the home page.  Find the main link for the discussion and re-enter it.  Sorry, this is really an area where Canvas could be improved.

Viewing and Monitoring Group Activity

As an instructor, you can view what is happening in groups by viewing each user group from the  People  page of the course. You can view student activity within the group and view group-created content. You can also access student groups to create group collaborations and add other group-specific content if necessary.

How do I view content and student activity within a group as an instructor?

Updated: October 11, 2022

Modal Title

• Assignment Groups

How Do I Use Assignment Groups in Canvas?

In Canvas, assignment groups allow you to organize your assignments into discrete groups. For example, you may want to group all the essay assignments in your course within one assignment group titled ‘Essays’.

Assignment groups allow you to leverage a weighted grade scheme in your Canvas course. A weighted grade scheme allows you to distribute percentages of a student’s final grade across these assignment groups. Following our previous example, you may want the Essays group to account for 30% of the final grade. 

By default, Grade weighting is turned off for all Canvas courses. To turn on Grade weighting, please follow Canvas’ tutorial for weighting final grades based on Assignment Groups.

How do grade weights get distributed across an Assignment Group?

In Canvas, the weight of an assignment group is distributed proportionally across the assignments inside it. Because of this, assignments worth different points will be weighted differently if they are in the same assignment group.

Here’s an example of an assignment group in Canvas. This group is worth 30% of the total grade and contains three assignments with different point values. The table further below outlines how the assignment group weight of 30% is distributed across the three Assignments.

Here, since Essay Two is out of 200 points, it will count two times more than Essays One and Three.

***assignment group weight distribution for assignments with differing point totals.

If you want all assignments within a given assignment group to be worth the same weight, you have two options:

1. Make all assignments inside an assignment group worth the same number of points, as shown below.

***In this scenario, we have changed Essay Two’s point value from 200 to 100 points. Since all point values in this assignment Group are the same, each Assignment will be worth the same, 10% in this case.

2. Create new assignment groups for any outlier assignments if you cannot or do not want to change their point value.

***In this scenario, we have not changed Essay Two’s point values, so we will need to put it in its own assignment group worth 10% and change the first assignment group to be worth 20% so that all Essays are now worth 10% of the total grade.

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• How do I create Group Sets and Course Groups?

Canvas Instructor Training video on how to create Group Sets and Course Groups:

A Group Set is a container that holds a number of Groups. For instance, an instructor might create a Group Set named “Recitations”, which might hold a number of Groups (Recitation 1, Recitation 2, Recitation 3…)

Instructors can create as many Group Sets as they want and each Group Set can contain any number of Groups. Students can be part of multiple Group Sets but can belong to only one Group within a Group Set.

Each Group, within a Group Set can:

-Share files (Group has its own Files tool) -Send and post Announcements (Group has its own Announcements tool) -Create Canvas Pages (Group has its own Pages tool) -Conduct Group Discussions (Group has its own Discussions tool)

Canvas Groups can be used for Group Assignments and Group Discussions. Groups cannot be used with Quizzes.

Go to the People tool

Click Add (+) Group Set

This displays the Group Set creation panel.

1 - Name the new group by typing it in the Group Set Name field.

2 - If you want to allow students to sign up for groups themselves, select the Allow self sign-up checkbox.

3 - You can have Canvas randomly assign the students into groups by clicking the Split students into [number] groups radio button and then typing the number of groups in the dialog box. Groups will have roughly equal numbers of students.

4 - You can manually create the groups by clicking on the I'll create groups manually radio button.

5 - If you choose to let Canvas randomly assign students to groups,  you can also choose to let Canvas assign student group leaders.

6 - Click the Save button.

Notes : The Require group members to be in the same section option is available in self sign-up and automatically created groups.

Example of two groups in a Group set

To view a Group site, click the group's "gear" icon and select "Visit Group Homepage"

To set up a Group Assignment, see: How do I assign a graded assignment to a Group?

To set up a Group Discussion, see: How do I assign a graded discussion to a Group?

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• Department Administrator - Delegated Access
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Search Utah State University:

Group discussions.

Making a regular discussion a group discussion is a great way to enhance student-to-student interaction for large classes.

On This Page

• Set-Up the Groups

Create Group Discussion

Viewing a group discussion, set-up the groups.

Click on People in the left-hand navigation

Click on the + Group Set button

Add a Group Set Name

The Group Set Name should reflect the purpose of the groups and may be generic, i.e. Discussion Groups, or more specific, i.e. Final Project Groups.

Optional: Check the box to Allow self sign-up

Use the Allow self sign-up, if you want students to be able to pick (and switch) which group they are in. If you check this option, you will get the option to require group members to be in the same section. You will also have the chance to designate a certain number of groups and limit the group size.

Choose group structure

At this point you can either choose to split the class into a certain number of groups or split students into groups of a certain size. If you choose either of these options, the groups will be created using the group set name (Canvas will drop the "s" on the end) and a sequential number for each group. Students will randomly be distributed among the groups.

Note: If you decide to create the groups later, you will need to come back to the People page to create each group individually and assign students to the desired group for the SpeedGrader to work properly.

Optional: Keep the Require group members to be in the same section box unchecked

Unless you would like to keep your class sections separate (e.g. undergrad students and grad students), you can leave this box unchecked.

Optional: Check the box Automatically assign a student group leader

If you would like to have group leaders, you can have Canvas automatically assign a student to by a group leader by whichever student joins the group first or by Canvas selecting a random student.

Preview groups

Once Canvas has created the groups, you will be able to click on the triangle to the left of each group name to see the members of the group. (NOTE: If students enroll in your class after you have created the groups they will appear in the Unassigned Students section and you will need to manually add them to a group.)

Optional: Rename the groups

After you have created the groups, you can rename each group to reflect an interest, topic, or portion of an assignment. For example, if you were to set the Group Set Name as "Color Groups" then the groups would be automatically named "Color Group 1," "Color Group 2," "Color Group 3," etc. You could then come back and rename the groups "Red Group," "Blue Group," "Purple Group," etc.

Enter the new group name and click Save .

On the Discussions page, create a discussion and add desired settings or edit an existing discussion

Under the Group Discussion section, check the box next to This is a group discussion

On the Group Set dropdown menu, select group set name

Review discussion options for accuracy

Click Save & Publish button to make the discussion available to students

To see what the group is discussing:

Go to the discussion topic

Click on the group menu button to the left of the search bar and click on the name of the group you want to view

Switch groups using the dropdown menu at the top of the page

Return to the class by clicking on the group name in the crumb navigation

Then, click on the course name in the crumb navigation

Use Weighted Assignment Groups in Your Canvas Course

by Thomas Keith | Aug 26, 2022 | Canvas , Canvas Features/Functions , How-tos , Pedagogy

Introduction

• Create an Assignment Group

Weight Assignment Groups

Use weighted assignment groups to calculate the total grade, drop a low score from an assignment group, further resources and getting help.

It is good pedagogical practice to maintain a Canvas Gradebook that gives an accurate reflection of your students’ performance. Students frequently consult their grades in Canvas to get a sense of how they are doing in your course and of areas in which they need to improve. You can use weighted Assignment Groups in your Canvas course to help ensure that the grade calculated by Canvas is indicative of students’ actual performance.

Create An Assignment Group

An Assignment Group in Canvas is a means of sorting assignments according to the categories to which they belong in your syllabus. By default, new assignments created in your Canvas course will be added to a catch-all group called Assignments . (Note that “assignments” in this context refers to anything that is graded; this can be an Assignment proper, a Quiz, or a graded Discussion.)

You can create a new Assignment Group by going to the Assignments tab in your course and clicking the gray +Group button at the upper right.

It is a good idea to give your group a name that reflects the assessment categories on your syllabus. For example, if the group contains quizzes that are given each week of the quarter, you might call it Weekly Quizzes .

Once a group has been created, there are two ways to add assignments to it:

Assignment Groups are most useful when used to weight grades. With weighted Assignment Groups, you can make the organization of your assignments in Canvas match the organization used on your syllabus. You also have greater flexibility than is offered by weighting each individual assignment: if an assignment needs to be dropped or added, you can simply remove it from/add it to the appropriate assignment group, and Canvas will automatically recalculate the final grade accordingly.

For the remainder of this post, we will use as an example a course in which the grading is as follows:

• Five short quizzes: 20% of the final grade
• One midterm exam: 30% of the final grade
• One final exam: 40% of the final grade
• Attendance and participation: 10% of the final grade

To begin, the instructor creates four assignment groups, named Short Quizzes , Midterm , Final Exam , and Attendance and Participation .

She then clicks the column of three dots at the upper right and chooses Assignment Groups Weight .

She then checks the box next to Weight final grade based on assignment groups . This allows her to set the percentage weight for each assignment group.

Note that Canvas shows the instructor that the assignment groups add up to 100%. It is important to check this, as Canvas will not stop you if your groups add up to less than or greater than 100%.

Once the instructor has weighted her groups to her satisfaction, she clicks the maroon Save button. Canvas then indicates across from each assignment group’s name the percentage value of the total grade that it carries.

The instructor can now create her assignments and add them to the appropriate assignment groups by one of the two methods enumerated above.

An important caveat: If an assignment group contains more than one assignment, it is important that all assignments have the same point value for Canvas’ math to work out correctly. This avoids the risk of “double weighting,” which will occur if assignments within a group have different point values. For example: if a quiz worth 5 points and a quiz worth 50 points are placed in the same assignment group, the latter quiz will be worth ten times as much in Canvas’ calculations, which will greatly skew the result. In our example course, the instructor has avoided this risk by creating five quizzes within the Short Quizzes group, each of which is worth three points.

The Midterm and Final Exam groups each contain only one assignment. This can be an assignment of type Online Assignment if the instructor wishes her students to submit it through Canvas, or it can be an assignment of type On Paper if students will hand in a physical exam paper.

For the Attendance and Participation group, the instructor creates an assignment of type No Submission .

Remember that in Canvas, there is a one-to-one correspondence between assignments and columns in the Gradebook. Thus, if you wish to create a column for (e.g.) students’ attendance/participation grade, it is necessary to create a corresponding assignment. By making it of type No Submission , the instructor has ensured that students do not need to hand in any work, while still creating a Gradebook column where the grade is recorded.

Note also that if students need to submit work that will not be graded, such as an outline for an upcoming paper, you can create an assignment of submission type Online Assignment and check the box Do not count this assignment toward the final grade in the assignment options area.

Using weighted assignment groups allows Canvas to do your math for you. A column will appear in the Gradebook for each assignment group. The Total column will be calculated by multiplying the value of each column by its percentage weight and adding the results. In the case of the student below, the grade is calculated as follows:

Short Quizzes: 12 out of 15 possible points = 80 * 0.2 = 16

Midterm Exam: 90 out of 100 possible points = 90*0.3 = 27

Final Exam: 80 out of 100 possible points = 80*0.4 = 32

Attendance and Participation: 100 out of 100 possible points = 100*0.1 = 10

Total: 16+27+32+10 = 85

If you wish, you can set an assignment group to drop one or more low scores (or high scores) automatically. To do this, go to the group within the Assignments tab and click on the column of three dots across from its name to open a dialog box. Then enter the number of low or high scores you wish to drop and click Save .

You can also specify that an assignment should never be dropped by clicking the blue +Add an assignment link next to Never drop: and choosing its name from the drop-down that appears.

For more information, please see:

• How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?
• How do I create rules for an assignment group?

If you have additional questions, Academic Technology Solutions is here to help. You can attend our workshops to learn more about Canvas and other tools for teaching with technology. You can also drop into our Office Hours (virtual and in-person) to ask any questions you may have; no appointment is required.

(Cover Photo by Piret Ilver on Unsplash )

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