[Assignments] Assign to by Group for Individual Assignment

[ashley_harvey]

This idea was submitted previously and archived (see below). I would also request the same thing. For individual assignments, I would like to be able to "Assign to" by Group. I often divide the class into groups with varying discussion assignments or assignment due dates, yet these are individual assignments. I teach large classes, so it is too much work to type in individual names repeatedly.

Assign to" Student Groups for Individual Assessment

Created on Oct 14, 2015 8:05 AM by Crystal Trotter    

I want to be able to create Groups based on their modification or need and assign it to that group.Currently we have teachers who have to type in a LOT of student names when it's a modified assignment. Being able to pre-create groups with those students in them and assign or exclude that group would save a lot of time.

[DaniaI]

Hello Canvas Community! 

In my classes, half of the students receive one version of an assignment while the other half receive a different version of the assignment.  When I post both versions of the assignment for all students to see, students often complete the wrong version! 

I want to be able to assign one of the versions to half of my students and the other version to the other half of the class. This class is not separated by sections, so the option to assign to separate sections is not a possibility for me. 

Additionally, this is not a "group assignment", so I do not want only one of the students in the group to submit the assignment. 

Is there any way to create a feature that allows me to assign one version of an assignment to a subset of students without manually typing in every name of the students in the "assign to" box? I have had several other professors express interest in this type of capability, and hope it can become a possibility soon! 

[LMacaulay]

All we need is to have any groups we have created in a course appear in the "Assign to" box like sections do and we would be golden. Please, Canvas, implement this much-needed feature. 

[zm21f]

I have ~350 students. I separate them by their last names into 8 different groups and I want to add different due dates for 2 different assignments for these 8 groups! I t is a matrix! Currently, Canvas doesn't let me do this and it takes a long time to add each student to the "Assign to" boxes.

Please add a feature to Canvas to let me do different due dates for groups of students.

[aeagle]

This originally appeared as a question in 2016. How has this not been resolved by 2022? 

[aeagle]

I wish I could "5-star" this on behalf of every single instructor in our college! This is one of our more common "How do I?" questions and is always a huge letdown when we tell them that they have to individually type in names. 

@tori_sifantonak I think this would be a great workaround for the issue I emailed you regarding a non-cumbersome way to give students assignment options. An instructor could assign the options to different groups, and then set the groups as self-signup (there would be cases of students not making a choice - in that instance, the instructor can just drag all of them into one of the groups and give them a 0). It wouldn't solve all assignment choice options, but would just give another workaround option for cases in which mastery paths wasn't the best choice.

[cindykukla]

@zm21f if your students are not in sections, you can create sections for your 8 groups, then assign to the section.  Sections can be used the way we'd like to use assignment groups. Unfortunately if you are already using sections it won't work because students can't be in more than one section. 

Anxiously awaiting a resolution on this!

[James]

@cindykukla 

Students may absolutely be in more than one section and instructors may not be able to add sections on their own.

At our school, our student information system (SIS) controls the sections so students are in only one section and instructors cannot move them or create their own groups.

A Canvas Admin could create additional sections for the instructor, but it may interfere with other processing going on where the school expects that all sections are SIS driven.

[fkolarz]

Is there a way to get an update on this idea?  It doesn't make sense that this can't implemented.  I have quite a few instructors that have groups and this would be a good option for them to use.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

I'd like to add another argument to why we need to be able to assign to a group. 

As new students continue to add a course and are assigned to groups, it means editing every assignment to add their name to the "Assign to" field.  If we could assign to a group, then adding the student to the group would be enough.  Differentiated assignments need to be allowed by group as well as by section.

Instructure, Groups are useful for group projects, but they are useful for other things too, like managing who needs to do an assignment, or who might have different due dates.  Sections are used as an enrollment tool for us, they are not always applicable to assignments.  Section enrollments are managed by SIS and teachers can't use them for this purpose.

Thank you for listening!

[TiemeyerM]

This would be so helpful! I often have "expert groups" as we go through different units. All assignments are individual, but the group members are all experts on one specific topic in the unit. Being the experts, means they have different assignments/quizzes based on their topic (one has a quiz on the geography of Mesopotamia while another has it on the geography of Egypt). It is tiresome to have to type in each student's name. It takes a lot of extra time.