Prohibit Replies to Group Discussions for Students without a Group Set

[rlee6]

The Problem:

If students post to a group discussion before they are placed in a group set, their discussion posts appear on the main discussion topic rather than in the group discussion. During add/drop period, teachers often wait a few days until enrollments are finalized before assigning students to groups. Students who work ahead without waiting to be assigned to groups then end up posting to the main discussion and get confused when they are eventually assigned to groups because they lose their original post. We have been advising our faculty to unpublish group discussions or delay availability until they have the groups sorted out, in addition to leaving very specific instructions asking students to wait for groups to be set up, but would like a more permanent fix. 

Another related issue occurs when a student is added to a course late, as the instructor may not notice right away and therefore doesn't add them to a group. The student then posts to the main discussion without being in a group. The grading experience is compromised and it confuses students.

Proposed Fix:

If a discussion is set up to be a group discussion, prevent students from posting unless they are in a group. Display an error message to students not in a group and alert instructors that there are students in the course who still need to be assigned to a group.

[deanna_soth]

This is the single most important issue my team deals with. Every term start we get frantic calls and emails about this - I would absolutely love to see this get resolved. Thank you Canvas for considering! 

[jepucci]

Please, please, please do this! This would save me so much stress and email!

[snugent]

This is serious flaw that is especially bad with self sign up. 

[emily-wright]

This is much needed.  My current best workaround for this is to post my own "reply" in what I call the "no-man's-land" discussion area.  My reply has a big warning sign graphic and alerts students that they need to go back a sign up for a group before they post to the discussion, but they still only see this IF they see my reply.

It was also the case for awhile that students using the mobile app would post to the no-man's-land regardless for whether they were in a group, unless they exited the course and entered the discussion from the group page.  This bug might have been fixed now though.

An even better fix for this problem would be to have an option to sign up for a group from within the discussion page (for self sign-up), or to group students automatically when they post their first post, either randomly or in order of posting.  The latter would really help create options for more flexibly paced courses, while still allowing opportunities for student-student "regular and effective contact."

Allowing instructors to move a student post into a different group would also really help.  

[ProfessorBeyrer]

This is a great idea, @rlee6. I use self-selected groups for a project and allow my students not to join a group if they don't want to do the project. I give students points to join a group, so I have to use the module requirements settings to prohibit the non-joiners from accessing the group discussion. The non-joiners also lose access to the content related to the project, which they would benefit from reading even if they don't join a group. I guess I could use mastery paths to set this up, but this is extra work that will be saved when your excellent idea is enacted.

[ProductPanda]

Comments from Instructure

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.