Campus Clubs and Groups

[Chris_Hofer]

In Canvas, it is possible to set up a campus club or group in Canvas that lives outside of any course.  The club/group isn't tied to any one course.  For example, we have a Multicultural Club, an Auto Technicians Club, an Accounting Club, and a Chiropractic Specialist Club (to name a few) in our Canvas instance.

In order to set this up, you need to have Admin access to your Canvas instance.  If you don't have this kind of access, speak to someone who is at your school.  Here's what you get: Home, Announcements, Pages, People, Discussions, Files, Conferences, and Collaborations.

Here are the steps to setting this up:

1. Go to your Admin Pages (Managed Account) of Canvas.
2. Click People on the left nav.
3. On the upper right corner of the screen, click on the More People Options (three dots) button.
4. Select View user groups.
5. Click the + Group Set button to name your group set (for example, "Clubs").
6. Click the + Group button to add the name of a group within that Group Set.
7. Begin adding people to the Group by clicking on the round + icon next to the name of the group.  You can search for a person's name or their e-mail address.
8. Click on the cog wheel to set the Group Leader.  At this time, there can only be one Leader per group.

Keep in mind that if you have the same person in multiple groups, it will be necessary to first create an additional Group Set (step #5) since an individual cannot currently be assigned to two or more Groups within the same Group Set.

This blog entry has been cross-posted here: Paper Pumpkin - Campus Clubs and Groups - Instructure Community - 280220 (canvaslms.com) but includes some slight edits above.

[laurakgibbs]

Oh, that sounds very cool,  @Chris_Hofer  : I will consider this my "learn something new every day" accomplishment... and I haven't even had my coffee.

Now I am going to BOOKMARK this so that I will have it for future reference. Thank you for sharing this option!

[snugent]

Another tip for admins adding people. The search feature can be slow finding the people. If you look up the people first in a different window, you can copy the number in the URL that uniquely identifies the person. I find this is much quicker and very helpful when you have similarly named people (e.i. John Smith)  listed in your database. I created a feature request for the ability to allow people to self-enroll into groups. 

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/1334  - it is in cold storage now but another feature request, https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/7932-account-level-groups-additional-functionality" modifiedti..., as appeared posted by  @kheading ‌

[kmeeusen]

Morning laurakgibbs

We started out creating account-level groups for our clubs, committees, staff departments, and more; then we switched to creating them Canvas classrooms to make available the full functionality of Canvas. We just put them all in special "Terms" with no start and stop dates so that they are always available. We named the Terms, logically enough, Clubs, Committees, Departments - aren't just that creative in our naming?

We set these classrooms to Open Enrollment, made someone in charge of each (faculty advisor, Committee Chair, Department Director). They distribute the self-enroll links as appropriate, then ask us when they need someone removed.

No fussa, no mussa!

KLM

[kevinw]

I think the quickest way to add people in the group is with their student ID using the API. For example you could make a POST which says...

https://yourURL.instructure.com/api/v1/groups/GroupID/invite?invitees[]=student_email1@email.com&invitees[]=student_email2@email.com&invitees[]=student_email3@email.com...

and so on

[emily_renoe]

hey Chris!   you seem to be the GROUP guru....so, is there any way for Groups to make their content public? i.e Pages they have collaborated on....   thanks, Emily [UBC]

[emily_renoe]

Hi Chris!  me again!!!!   Whats the rationale for creating  Campus Clubs and Groups that live outside pf Canvas?  thanks, Emily

[Chris_Hofer]

I'm not sure on that one.  My hunch is no.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi  @emily_renoe ‌...

It's not that the group lives outside of Canvas...it's that the group lives outside of a Canvas course.  The first paragraph in my blog posting gives some examples for school/institution groups that aren't a part of any Canvas course...but yet still live inside of the Canvas environment.  Hope this helps.

[emily_renoe]

darn.  that would be great!   thanks again   Emily