Make Group Assignments Respect Sections

(6)
Idea:

Include an option in the People tool to create a group for each section.

 

Problem:

It is very labor intensive to add a whole section of students to a group (some of our sections have 300+ students)

 

Use Cases:

Instructor needs to share select resources with a section

Instructor needs to have discussions available to specific section

Instructor needs to share Content Pages with a specific section

Instructor needs to conference with a specific section

 

Mockup:

88443_Canvas_Section-Groups.pngCanvas_Section-Groups.png

Implementation Consideration:

  • The groups would need to stay synchronized as section membership is updated
  • Would need to account for the case where a section is added after the Groups were setup

 

 

NOTE: This is a more tightly scoped request based on the thinking from More section control for group creation

55 Comments
spn322
Community Novice

Dear John. We (at the university of Copenhagen, Denmark) would be very greatfull for that script. It would be a great help

Best regards

Jonas

hardinm
Community Contributor

This teacher of multiple sections of 1 course, with students totally ~120 students would love this feature.

jthoms
Community Novice

Canvas admins, please chime in, and look for possible solutions on this poll: https://community.canvaslms.com/polls/1268

johnpj
Community Contributor

The University of Michigan's tool for creating Groups based on Sections is available in GitHub at: GitHub - tl-its-umich-edu/canvas_groups_for_sections

johnpj
Community Contributor
Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  Idea is currently in Product Radar Learn more about this stage...
Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-12-10)

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

After revising this feature idea from the production release notes, we’ve updated this idea to On Product Radar. The last two items referenced under the Implementation Consideration section are not included as part of the newly released groups feature. We plan to address those two concerns but they will take additional work to design and implement. We’ll provide updates to this idea as made available by our product team.

johnpj
Community Contributor

It looks like the name of this Idea was changed from "Groups Based on Sections" to "Make Group Assignments Respect Sections".  If that was intentional, is there a way we can note the change in title?

I maintain a history of the ideas tracked by our university (Active UM Idea Requests ) and I'd like to maintain the integrity of that list if possible.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

Hey johnpj

Great questions.  Unfortunately, ideas do not have versions, as documents do.  If the name was modified, it was to help add clarity for searching.  Sorry if this adds confusion.

Nancy_Webb_CCSF
Community Champion

Hi  @Renee_Carney ‌, I do hope the other two points will make it past product radar, although I am very grateful for what we have.  Our instructors can't keep up with new students since they can't be online 24/7, and if students are not yet in their section group, they are allowed to post to the main discussion.  After they are added to their group, their main discussion posts don't show up in speedgrader if it's a graded discussion, and from the student's point of view their posts have disappeared.

As John Johnson originally put it:

  • The groups would need to stay synchronized as section membership is updated
  • Would need to account for the case where a section is added after the Groups were setup

Thanks to all,

Nancy

RobDitto
Community Champion

All,

There is a great new feature idea about specifying which subsets of sections apply to groups:

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

The Radar idea stage has been removed from the Feature Idea Process.  You can read more about why in the blog post Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes.

 

This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities.  This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for you to see the true top voted ideas in one sort, here.

pwiltshireuts
Community Member

At my uni, I regularly set up groups per class (i.e. sections) for tutors to communicate and share files with their students. For the first few weeks of session there is always movement between classes but while the sections are regularly synced with our timetabling system, group members have to be updated manually. The ability to create groups based on sections would save me a lot of time and emails back and forth with students.

KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: Archived

Thank you for sharing this idea with the Instructure Community!

The Product Team reviewed all feature proposals recently, and unfortunately, this thread was identified as one that they would not be able to include in their current or future plans. While we appreciate your proposal, we also want to be transparent about the likelihood of something like this making it to production.

Thank you for collaborating, and we hope that you submit another idea in the future!