Group assignment, self-sign up from submission page

[erik_lysbakken]

Canvas has a setting, which allows students to self-sign up to groups when using group assignments. However, the submission page does not tell the student how to sign up or submit as a group at all.

We often do group submissions in “larger” courses with 200+ students. When self-sign up is used, students often get confused and have to ask for specific instructions on how to sign up to a group.

This is time consuming and causes frustration. Students often end up submitting individually or sign into the wrong group, which again causes problems when grading assignments.

* Self-sign up should be available directly from the submission page.

  That would allow students to submit and sign up to a group at the same time, from the same location. Which would      eliminate some of the need for specific instructions. 

[chrhh]

I concur! This causes lots of confusion indeed.

When it's a group assignment and the group set is set to "self signup", there should definitely be a button to select a group directly in the assignment. Furthermore, students should not be able to make a delivery without selecting a group, or at least get a warning about this.

[arild_schanke]

I agree. This is a great source of frustration and confusion. As a fail-safe, you could also add the option to make group membership mandatory before being able to submit. 

My top 2 wishlist for improved group assignments:

1) Make it possible to add a separate deadline for forming groups. If you are not part of a group close to the deadline, bring up a warning and display available groups when logging on to Canvas.

2) Add the possibility to make group assignmenst mandatory, effectively preventing individual hand-ins and the confusion this causes.

[RobDitto]

 @arild_schanke  (and everyone), there are existing feature ideas related to both parts of your wishlist:

• 1) https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/12658-appointments-set-deadline 
• 2) https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/10712-prohibit-submisisons-to-group-assignments-without-a-grou... 

Please consider upvoting and commenting! Thanks in advance.

[david_parmentie]

And due to the possibility of students changing groups after assignment submission the following fix is also important:

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/12609-close-self-sign-up-to-groups-on-a-specific-date 

[erik_lysbakken]

Absolutely, this is very important! We have had several cases where students have joined other groups to copy submissions.. There are many issues with group submissions + self sign up. Some of these issues should definitely be a priority to change due to the severity of the problem.

I find it strange that ideas concerning self sign up have so few votes when the group system has so many obvious flaws. 

But I guess we will just have to cross our fingers and wait.

[spraguem]

I concur! I recently switched to Canvas from Blackboard, which has a feature like this. There should be the capability to post a group sign-up page (ideally attached to the assignment) that shows students only groups in the group-set attached to an assignment. I use a lot of groups sets in large classes, and it is EXTREMELY difficult for students to find the right group to join in the current interface.

[erik_lysbakken]

Yep! We are still having massive issues using the group submissions + self signup, i probably spend 1/3 of my time cleaning up / fixing group submissions and plagiarism cases due to students signing into other students groups.

I have just testet the new "assignment workflow" which looks very promising! I am really hoping they will make group submissions a priority for this new workflow as it's currently on the "not supported" list: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-18149-canvas-release-student-assignment-enhancements#jive_c...

[ProductPanda]

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