How can I assign a quiz to a group?

[heatherrestall]

I want to assign a quiz to a particular group rather than a whole class. I've set up the groups but I don't seem to be able to assign groups in a quiz.

[tpavlic · Accepted solution]

Here is a work-around for those who would like this feature. Canvas now supports exporting group membership by CSV (without having to resort to using the API). Export your group membership and then re-import them as SECTIONS. To do this, go to "People" and then (with mild modifications to the exported group-membership CSV) import your students to sections with the same names as your groups. You can then assign the quiz to different sections. 

This manual group-to-section bridge is far less tedious than adding students one-by-one to each quiz. It is still not perfect.

I have taken this approach to generate a kind of "sign-up" for different assignments (similar to the sign-up options in the calendar for office hours/meetings). I turn on self-enrollment for a certain group set. Then, at a deadline I give them, I convert all of the groups in the group set to sections. Each section is associated with a different assignment option (which might only vary in due date). 

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi  @heatherrestall ...

It doesn't look like you can assign a group to a quiz exactly the same way that you can with an assignment in your course.  However, if you go to your quiz settings (in "Edit" mode), you can remove the "Everyone" label in the "Assign to" box, and then select individual students.  I know this isn't maybe the most ideal, but it might work for your needs.

[kona]

I agree with Chris, that while you can’t directly assign a quiz to a group you can still accomplish this by adding the individual students in the group to the quiz in the “Assign To” box. For more on how to do this see the following guide - https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10038-4152101240 

Hooe this helps!

Kona

[karen_blevins]

Well, it's helpful if you have specific a specific quiz for each group but I am using the QUIZ template to create labs and exercises -- since many of the labs have only one answer then it is much easier to just create a fill in the blank answer. The problem I am trying to overcome is to have the "quiz" (actually an assignment) grade automatically update to the group members' grades. Also, if I were able to assign groups to the assignment (using the quiz template) then any group member could complete the assignment -- not just the individual who had been assigned to the quiz.

It would be helpful to use the quiz template as either an assignment or quiz. Having an assignment template AND a quiz template is a bit redundant.

[karen_blevins]

This is exactly what I am doing. Right now only one member on the group submits...painful approach.

[tpavlic]

So what do you do when you have 100 groups? Are you saying you manually have to go through your group list, choose a single student in each of the 100 groups, and manually assign that student to the quiz? And do this for every group quiz throughout the assignment?

How has Canvas managed to be deployed in classes over 10 or 11 students? You're asking a lot of the instructors. What are your software developers doing during the work day?

[Renee_Carney]

Greetings  @tpavlic  

The feature idea you will want to follow related to this topic can be found athttps://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/5574-assign-to-by-group-for-individual-assignment" modifiedtit....  

I also want to draw your attention to What are the Canvas Community guidelines?  We have a very professional and respectful Community here, and we do so by asking our users to follow some very simple guidelines.  It's ok to be critical or share frustration in your posts, but it is not ok to personally attack other individuals that are genuinely seeking the same thing you are.  We are all on the same team here, Ted.  This is not an adversarial relationship.    

[jonklaus]

Puh-leeze. Ted is absolutely right. The amount of inconsistencies in Canvas is staggering. Why are we able to assign an assignment to a group but not a quiz? The first time that this obvious oversight was brought up, why wasn't it fixed? What *do* the engineers who work for your organization do all day?

[rangerlindsay]

Canvas has so many bugs in the testing software I can't believe any university is willing to use it. At the rate Canvas improves, it will take  1000 years to be a satisfactory product.

[rangerlindsay · Accepted solution]

Canvas cannot do the most simple of tasks when it comes to quizzes.

[lacteach]

I agree this feature would be very helpful. Unfortunately, selecting individuals to which to assign a quiz is not a good option when you teach 100+ students or when you want students to get into groups randomly to complete the "quiz" as an exercise.

[LauraFIU_IDT]

THIS IS NOT THE SOLUTION CANVAS!!!

[ssandwick]

You will find that Canvas is not very responsive to requests for these basic things like assigning quizzes to groups, partial credit in quizzes.next... As has been stated previously, lack of ability to group students for differentiated quizzes (or other reasons) is unacceptable, but unlikely to ever change.  

[collins149]

And... after assigning it to one group member, create a group assignment that appears right next to it in the gradebook. When the designated students complete the quiz, enter that score into the group assignment next to it and it will populate the same scores for everyone. You can then delete the quiz scores and/or that entire assignment. Maybe a clunky workaround but lets the computer do the grunt work.

[baldwinsh]

This is an interesting workaround. I see two problems with this approach. 1) what happens if the assigned student is not present when the group meets? How would the group complete the quiz (We have classes where groups meet outside of class to do their group work) and 2) If you delete the quiz you lack a papertrail. How can you justify the grade that you have given to students should your course ever be audited?

Please, Dear Canvas software engineers. Please give quizzes the option to be a group assignment! This would be an awesome feature to add to New Quizzes and I know that is a major focus of yours right now. Can you imagine what this addition would do for a) drawing in more customers and b) increasing customer satisfaction? Sounds like a win-win!

[baldwinsh]

Deleting the entire assignment would eliminate the paper trail. How could you justify the score if anyone ever asked? If you unpublished the quiz, would the results still remain?

[RupertRussell]

Canvas is miles behind Moodle which can do this eaisly!  Why does canvas SUCK!

[rangerlindsay]

Moodle is far superior. Why does any school  purchase Canvas??? Obviously the ones who make the decisions are n ot the ones that actually use it.

[GrahamSmallwood]

I've been on a district-wide tech committee.  I don't want to say the decision is based purely on cost, but the decision is literally only made based on cost.  There are no trials or surveys done of any faculty.  Just "The other two schools in the district picked Canvas, so we can get it for 10% off!"

[RupertRussell]

Not ideal if you have 3,000 students in your unit

[dan_stone_ky]

Please add this feature. I have students in my class that have completed part of the class already. Some assignments are for everyone-except-them. Feature should be to select or deselect groups or sets. I shouldn't have to do data entry to make this happen.    

[karen_blevins]

There should be an assignment template that combines the quiz and assignment features and then you can give it the label of quiz if you want to but you can also assign it to groups and use the quiz template tools. Having assignment and separate quiz templates is unnecessary since ultimately it is a label issue.

[acgottfr]

Please add this feature.  I have my class of 300 divided into groups and one set of groups who is participating in class just has to take a picture of their work and turn it in.  I created an assignment for that ...done.  Those that are not participating are asked a bit more involved questions that the quiz feature can handle.  I go to assign the quiz to these students and realize that all the work done in creating this group will have be done 38 more times for the 38 quizzes they have over the course of the semester.  It is so frustrating to know that I will have to spend a lot of time assigning 40 individuals instead of assigning a group.  

[BROOKERAWLINS]

Plus it doesn't allow for very good differentiation!!!!

[piyushashah]

I agree, this is a very useful feature that is needed. The suggested workaround (of assigning the quiz to one student per group) is tedious and in large classes can lead to scoring errors (unless there is an automatic method of transferring that one student's grade to all other group members). Ideally, when suggesting workarounds, the chance of creating errors because of workarounds must also be mentioned. 

[aradley]

I agree! I would mainly love this feature so that I can make the quiz available to specific groups during their class period only.

[karen_harris1]

I would like students to take group quizzes that promote discourse.  It is part of the TBL structure, where students take the quiz individually, and then take the same quiz as a group.  This is a wonderful strategy, but Quizzes in Canvas does not support it.

[sujatakrishna]

I hold graded group problem solving sessions in my face-to-face course that I am trying to replicate in the online course and not finding any elegant way. I need the online sessions to be proctored such as with honorlock to ensure students are not looking up answers on the internet. I also need students to be able to set their own group-session time within the week. So its quite like a group quiz. I would very much want such a feature. 

[lpickel]

I use groups as a way to differentiate, so the ability to assign quizzes to different groups is a huge time saver.

[tpavlic · Accepted solution]

Here is a work-around for those who would like this feature. Canvas now supports exporting group membership by CSV (without having to resort to using the API). Export your group membership and then re-import them as SECTIONS. To do this, go to "People" and then (with mild modifications to the exported group-membership CSV) import your students to sections with the same names as your groups. You can then assign the quiz to different sections. 

This manual group-to-section bridge is far less tedious than adding students one-by-one to each quiz. It is still not perfect.

I have taken this approach to generate a kind of "sign-up" for different assignments (similar to the sign-up options in the calendar for office hours/meetings). I turn on self-enrollment for a certain group set. Then, at a deadline I give them, I convert all of the groups in the group set to sections. Each section is associated with a different assignment option (which might only vary in due date). 

[karen_harris1]

I like @tpavlic 's post about a shortcut to mirror group membership with section membership, but it only offers the functionality of differentiating quiz assignments to individual students.  It is more of an administrative function, and less of a pedagogical function.  The functionality I am looking for is team/group quizzing the functions the same way that a group assignment functions - and the learning objective is collaboration, peer instruction, consensus building, etc.

Team/Group quizzing is wonderful for students for promoting discourse and community.  It also switches up the perspective on assessment overall, which is overturning lots of preconceived notions about how students learn and how they demonstrate mastery.  Perhaps not enough votes happened for this functionality in Canvas Quizzes initially because the world was still focused on high-stakes assessments with "integrity" as the gold standard.  We have come a long way since then - Canvas please take note.

I guide instructors, for example, on how to implement TBL, and the GRAT phase is not doable in Canvas at this time.  Consider that this is a feature that would support students directly, by shifting the assessment further in their direction to more thoroughly support learning and retention.

[karen_harris1]

Is assigning a Quiz to a Group Set on the Canvas Roadmap?

[mcarlson]

Assigning individually is not a solution.

What if you have one person absent?  I need to assign a quiz to a group (so that it grades it) but gives the scores to the group....  putting individual names in for every group assignment each time I have one is not feasible.   (and I'd have to change the person if someone is absent...)

I would like to assign my quizzes to a group.

[karen_harris1]

Will New Quizzes offer the ability to assign a quiz to Groups, where one quiz submission pushes the grade to everyone in the Group?

[sarah_harrelson]

It's very frustrating that I discovered this flaw in Canvas today on January 7, 2022 and when I went to search for a solution I found this thread that was started in 2018. Come on.

[mette_harding]

Hello - Yes, please fix this issue Canvas. We have implemented collaborate testing in our nursing program. Students take an exam individually for a grade, and then we give them the same exam on paper in groups of 3 where they go over and discuss why one answer is correct and the other are not. They do not get a lot of course credit for this additional assignment, but it a great leaning experience for them. We would love to stop killing trees by printing all the copies of the online exams and instead assign the exam/quiz as a group assignment online. 

[RupertRussell]

It's now 2024 and I am even more frustrated 😞

[CaseyMcCausland]

Please add this function! Other LMS programs have this feature and it would be great if Canvas could catch up with the competition. 

[michael_braunst]

But we can use emojis in speedgrader. /s

[RupertRussell]

Canvas is all about fluf and not about function