Students can now create a new discussion in their group? Not ideal!

[donnellyc]

Today I just discovered a couple students were able to create a new discussion forum within their groups.  This never happened before, and I need to be able to turn this setting off.

I have the class divided into several small groups to work on discussion questions.  I have a group discussion forum all set up for each group where they are to collaborate.  ALL of their correspondence related to the discussion question assignment is supposed to be in this forum, which had always been the case until today (8/27/2024).

Somehow, students can now apparently create new discussions for their group.  I have the setting turned off that should allow them to create their own discussions at the course level (click on Discussions, then the gear icon, and in the "Discussion Settings" box that appears, "Create discussion topics" is unchecked under Student Settings).  Yet, I've had two students today create their own forums (for the first time ever).

Has the Discussions redesign (a.k.a. downgrade) from summer 2024 affected this?  How do we turn off students' ability to create new discussion forums in their groups?  How difficult would it be for Canvas to allow us to revert back to the legacy Discussions (instead of forcing a fix on us for something that wasn't broken)?

[kda106 · Accepted solution]

@donnellyc Hi! My understanding is that this is not new functionality. The groups area has always provided students with a place to create their own discussions, announcements, pages, etc. Nothing created by students in the groups area is connected to the gradebook...it's just a place for them to communicate and collaborate (with the exception of graded group discussions created specifically by the instructor).

Rarely do I see students creating new discussions in those group areas, so perhaps this is just the first time you have students doing so.

[Hildi_Pardo]

Yes, My understanding is the same as @kda106 -- groups have always been an area for Collaboration -- it creates a mini Canvas course and they have control for using it.  Teachers can go in an check what's going on there, but for every group created, there is more to dive into to monitor.

• What are Groups?
• VideovGuide: Groups Overview Students