[ARCHIVED] Removing a Group Member from a Group in Canvas after Grades

[jcapell]

I am an instructor using group assignments. I've been digging for hours and finding all kinds of wonderful information that almost answers my question. 🙂

When we have group sets in Canvas and assignments linked to "this is a group assignment" for grading but then a group member disappears or drops out, what is the best way to remove that group member from the group set?

The easiest work around seems to be to change the assignments to grade individually; however, my group is adamant that they want to remove the missing group member so that this group member is not receiving group communication via Canvas.

I see we can clone group sets. Do I clone the group sets, delete all the clones except the one group I want to remove a member from, rename that particular group, and then remove the withdrawn group member from the new cloned/re-named group and tell the group to begin using the new cloned/renamed group? Will this affect other groups? How will this affect assignments or the grade book?

I appreciate any help!

~Jennifer

[nwilson7]

@jcapell It looks like no one has chimed in so I thought I would share my 2 cents 😉

I think it would depend if that member is now not turning anything in or is doing it alone.  If they are not doing it, you can go into the group set and just drag them into the "unassigned" area.  If they are still going to turn something in, then they need to be in a group with just them in it so you can create a new group "+ Group" call it like their name and drag them into it.

Hope this helps!

-Nick

[jcapell]

Hi Nick,

Thank you so much for your input. I really appreciate the help. We are still struggling to find an answer to this question.

The student has not officially withdrawn from the course but has essentially disappeared. They are not participating in the group or with the course. The instructor tried dragging the student name out of the group set, but because she used the "group assignment" selection when creating the assignment, she gets a warning from Canvas about it affecting the grade book (or something like that) and suggests cloning the group sets. All the information I find gets us to that point. My question is still what happens after we clone the group sets? What do we do next? Not all groups need to be cloned - just the one with the missing group member. Does this fix the grade book issue? Does the group use the new cloned group? We are afraid to play around with it in a real, active course for fear of impacting student grades. I don't know how to advise the instructor beyond this point other than don't use that feature in the future. 🙂

I see the benefit of selecting group assignments, though they do seem to be a complicated feature in this case.

Thank you again for your response!

~Jennifer

[nwilson7 · Accepted solution]

@jcapell Gotcha, so basically the error happens when the student (or members of a group they are in, which sounds more likely in this case) has already submitted stuff and potentially received grades for it and you are using the same group set again for other assignments.  If they were not part of the group in reality, it should be okay to select the second radial option to make the change.  This removes their grade if they got one and removes them from being part of the submission.  I would move them into their own group instead of just to the unassigned so they are still assigned the assignment if they randomly show up again.  

The option to clone the group set would work best if they have turned stuff in or were active at the beginning of the course and you want to preserve their work. You will just want to switch any assignment that have not yet been submitted by students to use the new group set that you just created.  This is making a copy of the entire group set, not just specific groups.  

Another way to think of this:  Little Nick was good when the semester started, was active in the group turned stuff in and now has disappeared.  I am still using the same groups but Nick is no longer participating.  I want to remove him but need to keep the grades he has earned thus far as he was a good student to start.  I would then use the clone tool, make a new group set that has Nick removed from the group that he was in.  I then need to switch the upcoming and current assignments (before ANYONE submits anything) to my new group set so it know Nick is now longer in his group.

Same story but Nick was never a good student and he never participated and now is just gone.  I would then chose the second radial when that warning comes up to go ahead and make the change because Nick was not part of any submission made in the class and did not earn any of the group grades.

-Hope this helps better but if not please reach back out!!!

Nick

[jcapell]

Excellent explanation. That darn Little Nick. 😉

Thank you so much for your help! I'll pass this along to the instructor, and we will give it a try.

~Jennifer