[Modules] Hiding and Viewing Modules for Individual Sections

This idea has been developed and is On Canvas Beta •  How do I access the Canvas beta environment?

For more information, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2024-07-20) 


Parts of this have been mentioned in previous requests (Modules within Modules and others) and I wonder if this is more to do with the needs of K12 than beyond?

 

We run a model based on UK curriculum which may be different to other school models (10+ subjects in a timetable, classes selected by ability, external examinations in 2/3 year groups, different content taught depending on the class etc). Having begun our implementation of Canvas the last thing we wished to do is create individual courses for each class and teacher in a subject. With up to 9 classes in a subject this would be an administrative nightmare and would go against much of what I believe a VLE is for - forward facing, collaborative, personalised, sharing of resources etc.

 

The reality is at school level it is very very difficult to create a core course that is truly personalised without some form of conditions/restrictions especially as "content is king". We add our classes as separate sections which enables assignments to be posted to individual classes. We would dearly like Canvas to go further and enable this option for other content such as pages/links etc.

 

The idea being suggested though is for teachers to be able to hide/view modules for individual sections

 

This would allow content (pages, links etc) to be viewed by individual sections. It would give teachers and students the best of both worlds. Modules could be 'turned on' for all sections or individual sections. It would allow you to create differentiated blocks of content/resources eg for those students who are perhaps sitting the 'Higher Level' exam. It would also allow us to support subjects where they have banded/set ability groups. It would also support subjects where topics are done on rotation due to resourcing. It would also reduce the risk of common core subjects such as Maths/Science developing vast 'silos' of resources/modules and making navigation harder than it should be. Would it also be less messy than Conditional activities?

 

I know that some suggestions have talked about creating extra courses but with the majority of our students having up to 15 courses to manage, the last thing I wish to see is doubling up courses and reducing engagement.

 

I think this is more of a K12 issue and it would be nice to see a little bit of love sent their way...

 

UPDATE: APRIL 2018

I was at the Dutch Users Group consortium on Friday. This consortium represents a sizeable and growing number of universities, colleges and schools within the Netherlands. As a group, we identified a number of ideas we wished to take forward and the one above emerged as a clear favourite (without any prompting from me!)

 

This is now an idea that has support across multiple educational organisations and the benefits of this idea are seen as hugely positive and wide ranging.

 

As the last comment on this was 16 months ago and 2 years since the idea was published, it would be nice to know what progress, if any, has been made here.

184 Comments
SusanW_UTS
Community Member

I'm bewildered to discover that this basic functionality doesn't exist in Canvas - despite conversations here demonstrating this has been a pain point for users since 2016. Please prioritise this development project, Canvas! 

IEML11
Community Explorer

Now it is 2022, still there doesn't seem a solution to this important feature. It is not uncommon that several classes use the same Canvas course, however, there might be differences on a more detailed level. Yes, one can work around by using pages but the feature "modules" is very straightforward, just restrict visibility shouldn't be too difficult to be implemented.!

JillRho
Community Explorer

I was just sitting here with a colleague wishing for the very same thing. I am hitting my head against the wall while the other teacher in the same course says to me, "DONT YOU DARE CHANGE THE COURSE!" ..and I'm like, "...but I only want to post things to help my students ...pls dont kill me." This would be a great work around so that I can survive for years at my job. Think of it as saving the life of a math teacher from being killed by another math teacher. (Sarcasm...Yes, I'm being factious.)

mbulpitt
Community Explorer

REALLY, it's 2022 and this is still rumbling on?

As an OPM, we have managed to avoid needing this for the last 5 years, knowing any requests for this functionality from Canvas would fall on deaf ears, but now we really NEED it. And it's still as far away as it ever was. Totally unacceptable.

We have Masters programmes in Canvas, each consisting of 5 individual courses and a programme hub course, with a student hub course containing information about institution-wide policies, rules, help etc, open to everybody. The engagement is low in the student hub but fine in the course hubs. So I am having it forced on me to merge all the hubs into one megahub and have a module tailored for each programme that's only visible to students in a particular section or group. There will be potentially tens of programmes accessing the megahub. Now do that across 7 or 8 Canvas instances for our different institutions... 😭

Thankfully this is embarrasingly easy to do in the 2 Moodle instances that we work with. I'm no Moodle fanboy, far from it, but COME ON CANVAS, this is basic stuff.

fred_bonatto
Community Explorer

Hi @Renee_Carney could you please give us an update on whether this idea will be considered by Instructure? It's been live for 6 years now and seems to have a lot of support (we could certainly use it). At least a definitive answer either way so it's not a feature that I get the occasional ping from when someone else posts questioning whether it's going to be considered or not. Thank you 🙂

cameron_redsell
Community Participant

Don't you hate when you find exactly the issue you're looking for, and no progress seems to have been made in, what is it now 7 years?

AndrewDwyer
Community Explorer

 

This feature is something our organisation is keen on, and it really limits Canvas' functionality not having it.

It would be nice to get an update on this

dspiel
Community Participant

I'm surprised that this hasn't been implemented yet.

VivianIves
Community Member

HI everyone, just wondering if anyone here could guide me. We have set up the 'lock until' function for all modules in one of our courses. However, one of the students has already complete this module (due to credit transfer) and would like to get started on the next one, however, I can't seem to be able to give access to the module to this student, unless I unlock the module, which means everyone else would have access to it. 

Is there any way around that I don't know of?

I very much appreciate any assistance/guidance on this.

Cheers, 

cassidy_vela
Community Explorer

Honestly, sections are pretty useless without this feature. PLEASE get on this! We have a faculty member begging to build a course with 30+ different modules where students can pick and choose upon registration which modules they want to complete.