Group Set Not Selected When You Copy/import/Duplicate a Group Assignment

[stewartk1]

I am part of my university's LMS administration team and we are having issues when Group Assignments are copied/imported/duplicated. Has anyone else had the same experience? Maybe even found a solution?

When you create a new Group Assignment Canvas will not allow you to save the assignment if you do not identify a group-set for the assignment. A warning will appear in the Group Assignments settings area telling you to select a group set. Once the group set is selected you can save the assignment.

However, if a Group Assignment is copied or imported the group set selection is left blank. Unless you go into the copied/imported assignment you do not know that the group set has not been selected.

If a student submits to the group assignment when no group set is selected Canvas does not show the submission for all members of the group in Speedgrader. This prevents all group members from being able to see an annotations made to the submission file. Additionally, when you go to the settings of the group assignment to troubleshoot you will find that a group set has been selected.

The Canvas selecting a group set after a student submission makes is difficult for us to troubleshoot when an instructor reaches out to us. The assignment settings look correct in the live course. It's only by comparing the production server with the test server that we are able to maybe (depending on timing of the last update to the test server) identify differences in the assignment's settings.

Is anyone else encountering this? Have you found a solution or work-around?

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @stewartk1 

I posted what I think is a related issue here with import behaviour here in the "Releasing Modules to Students and Sections" discussion. @AllisonHowell suggested they might be able to look into this.

It might be helpful to articulate how you think the system should behave - it sound like your preference would be that the assignment cannot be published until the Group Set is selected ?

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @stewartk1 

I posted what I think is a related issue here with import behaviour here in the "Releasing Modules to Students and Sections" discussion. @AllisonHowell suggested they might be able to look into this.

It might be helpful to articulate how you think the system should behave - it sound like your preference would be that the assignment cannot be published until the Group Set is selected ?

[stewartk1]

@paul_fynn,

Yes, I would like to have Canvas prevent group assignments from publishing if there is no Group Set selected. 

[chriscas]

As a Canvas admin, I would agree with this behavior for assignments and discussions marked as group assignments.  If a group set is not configured, or students are not attached to the configured group set (which creates all kinds of weird side effects), the assignment/discussion should not be able to be published.  That would save so much support work on the back end for us!

-Chris

[stewartk1]

Exactly. We were only able to catch it this time because Test/Beta happened to have been cloned in the right time frame to show that no group set was selected. This led me to to do some testing which showed that Canvas fudged the settings and made it look like the group set was assigned when it really wasn't. If it wasn't for that coincidence then we still wouldn't have known what happened.

[RecycledElectro · Accepted solution]

As an instructor, I have to carefully review the assignments that will open to students in the next week. I have to spend time to ensure things like groups are set up in advance.

I'm sorry that I do not know of a better way,