Groups in Canvas

A Group Set is a set of groups you create to use for assessment tasks, or to organise categories of groups. You can have up to 200 groups in a Group Set. When creating a group set via ‘+Group Set’, you can choose to: 

• Allow students to sign up to a group within the group set (student self–sign-up) 
• Automatically split the students into a set number of groups (random allocation) 
• Automatically split the students into groups of certain size (random allocation) 
• Manually create groups of students later (manual allocation)

Once created, the Group Set displays as a linked tab on the People page for easy access. If you chose to manually create groups you can do so by using ‘+Group’ to allocate them in Canvas or ‘+Import’ to use a CSV file. 

If you are using a group set for an assessment task, all students should be assigned to groups before the group assignment is due. Marks and submissions may be affected for students who are not assigned to a group when the assignment is submitted.

• Add a group set to a Canvas course site
• Edit a group set in a Canvas course site
• Create self-sign-up groups in a group set
• Automatically create groups in a group set
• Manually create groups in a group set
• Manually create groups by uploading a CSV file

The following video tutorial (4:51 min) shows you how to create and manage Groups and Group Sets in a Canvas course.

View transcript of this video tutorial

Groups are created within a group set, either manually, automatically or via self-sign-up. Once created, each group has a collaborative group workspace that is a mini version of your Canvas course. In this space, students can share files with each other, have private discussions and collaborate on their task(s). 

As an instructor, you can view the content and any activity within that workspace. 

• Manually create groups in a group set in Canvas 
• Manually create groups in a group importing a CSV file 
• Automatically assign students to a group
• Move a student into a different group
• View content and student activity within a group
• Message students who have not signed up for a self sign-up group