[Groups] Copy Group Settings

[donaldjo]

Group settings should be included when doing a course copy or Import.

I have a course which relies heavily on an intricate set of groups tied to assignments (it's a negotiations course) so I need to be able to copy the course over from term to term in complete form. Currently whenever I copy the course, the groups are all lost, as well as the tying of groups to the appropriate assignments. Re-creating the groups and then re-tying them to assignments takes an incredible amount of time.

Comments from Instructure

The Canvas Production Release Notes (2015-06-27) indicate that importing a course with group assignments now brings the group assignment settings to the new course; however, upon testing the group structures within a group set do not come with it.  For this reason we will keep this feature idea open for voting.  We will continue testing and update this post as soon as we have more information.

Course Settings and Grading Schemes

Importing Course Settings from a Canvas course export package also imports the grading scheme.

Explanation: When a user imported selective course content from a Canvas export package, the grading scheme was not included in the import. Importing the entire course was not affected. This behavior occurred because Canvas was not verifying grading standard copies if it was part of selected content. Canvas code has been updated to import the course grading scheme when part of selected course content.

[G_Petruzella]

Deactivated user​ - I just encountered a similar workflow issue this past semester. I agree - I would find it remarkably helpful in certain circumstances to copy/import Group-related settings.

[kda106]

I absolutely agree!

[lbouthillier]

Agreed - the Groups tool becomes a bigger liability the more you use it, since every setting associated with the groups must be recreated by hand after a course copy.  Group settings must be able to copy with a course.

[buellj]

The inability to copy group settings when copying courses has been a significant disincentive for our faculty to use group functionality so this would be a great enhancement.

[jhalter]

Good to hear others are having the same issue.  Group activity is very important for courses since it is a core ability at our College. Thanks for bringing this up and to have this issue fixed soon.

[admin_brake]

The use of Groups is very important in many courses that teach large numbers of students.

Having Group Settings copy forward with a course import would help all those instructors who go to a lot of effort to set up and use groups.

[ldprogrammers]

For scalability, we really need to see groups copy over.

[hoovenl]

I would like a set of groups, which I can choose from each term. In my class, each group gets a different research project, which I like to vary from term to term. Sometimes I repeat them, and it would be helpful to go grab that group.

[sipej1]

This would be very beneficial!

We have some courses that require group work. It's ideal to have the templates with Group Sets that copy over. Also, to have the assignment with a group submission setting enabled copy over.

Currently, Group Sets in a template do not copy over, instead another Group Set (with a different name) is create. It is unknown if the Group Set will work.

The assignment that was set as a group assignment kept the setting through a course copy, however it did not keep the link to the Group Set (since the group set did not copy over).

Since the settings were not working when courses were copied, Instructors must set up their Group Set and Groups as part of their pre-term setup. Since the assignments do not have the group assignment enabled, students are instructed to have one students in their group submit the assignment. This requires Instructors to grade one submission and then enter grades in the other student's cell of the gradebook. The other students do not see anything from mark-up tools or comments if Instructors wanted to use those features.

[allison]

Thanks for sharing these ideas!! It aligns with other requests for keeping maintaining course settings on export and import. Both efforts would certainly save you time and effort during your transition each term or school year.

Help me solidify the list of requests so I can take this to engineers for further discussion:

As an instructor...

1) when I export my course I have the option to select the group sets and groups I want carried over into my new course shell (without enrollments),

2) when I export my course and include group assignments, any groups associated with the assignments are copied over with the same name.

--exported groups maintain their links with group assignments,

--exported groups maintain their group settings (i.e. limit to number of group members)

Please feel free to comment and add to this list if I forgot anything.

Allison