Hidden Groups

[khh11]

  Idea open for vote Wed. February 3, 2016 - Wed. May 4, 2016  Learn more about voting...

We need to be able to create groups of students in which the members are private - not viewable by other students either in or outside of the group. Then we need to be able to send group messages and grant the group access to certain things. These would be groups created based on confidential information (disability status, for example), which is why the members need to be hidden.

  Comments from Instructure

July 2016 update from Peyton Craighill Admin

Thanks for the feedback. Canvas offers the ability to separate students by sub-account, course, section, and group, each of which can limit visibility in some form or another. A couple of approaches have been outlined above that might satisfy the need to restrict student visibility in this particular way, so I will archive this idea. Additional comments welcome!

[scottdennis]

Hello Kira,

Thank you for coming and submitting this feature idea.  It will open for vote next Wednesday.

[biray]

This idea has moved to the next stage and will be open for voting among the Canvas Community, from Wed. February 3, 2016 - Wed. May 4, 2016.

Check out this doc for additional details about how the voting process works!

[jpereira]

Our unit is interested in using Canvas to coordinate some parts of our academic advising.  We would like to organize students by graduating cohort, but it is a privacy issue if each student can see a long list of their peers.  For instance, if a student changes their graduating semester for personal reasons, it would be obvious to everyone else in their cohort that they have changed plans.

[tbunag]

Could this be handled by changing the student permissions?  For example, courses like this could be added to a particular sub-account, then students within this sub-account could have their ability to see the list of users removed.  I haven't tested it, but perhaps you could try it out?

[SethBattis]

 @tbunag  The sub-account approach would certainly work to turn off access to the course-wide People list, but the students would still have an actual group subsection People list available to them (just tested that). Plus, having groups creates that whole group subsection.

I would modify your approach by creating course sections, instead of groups, and also blocking access to the people list.

[cheryleey24]

This idea is similar to something that I want.  Maybe there could be a feature that allows the group to be secret (the other members cannot see each other) or not.  What I really want are groups that allow students to self-select themselves into the group, but other students (not in the group) cannot have access to the list of students in that group.  I want them to be student lead, but I suppose that an admin could be a "facilitator".  The current groups or courses don't allow for self-selection or student run groups. 

The primary use for these groups would be for student organizations/clubs/ cafes; i.e. LGBTQ+, WOC, Military, Religious based, etc.   

[peytoncraighill]

Thanks for the feedback. Canvas offers the ability to separate students by sub-account, course, section, and group, each of which can limit visibility in some form or another. A couple of approaches have been outlined above that might satisfy the need to restrict student visibility in this particular way, so I will archive this idea. Additional comments welcome!

[khh11]

I actually only see one idea above that might do what I want - Seth's - but it involves (a) blocking students from seeing *anyone* in the class, and (b) a whole lot of extra work for me. I still think we need this feature.