Batch Group Management

[lisa_li1]

Currently Canvas only allow manual Group creation and member assignment. This idea is about to provide Teacher ability to create course Groups, assign group members via batch .csv upload, so course Groups and group membership can be managed in a more efficient way. It will save lots of time for large courses with hundreds of students enrolled.  group‌group-creation

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Deploy Notes (2020-10-21) - Canvas Community .

[bschmidt3]

This wood be so helpful. We create groups each term and the drag and drop manual feature is incredibly time consuming. 

[tpavlic]

I completely agree. Having said that, I wanted to point out something that took me at least a semester to notice. As an alternative to dragging and dropping, you can click on the menu tied to each student in the list of un-assigned students and select a group for them to join. In some cases, this is much nicer than dragging and dropping (and yet still not a replacement for batch-group management that is currently only possible using the API).

Tangential note: Recently, the "New Gradebook" has added a group filter. Find it in the "View" menu (if I recall correctly) and "Filters." The "Group" filter allows you to view one group at a time. In the past, I created a dummy non-graded column with group ID's in it and sorted by that column to group students into their groups in the gradebook. I still do that, but the group filter is often quicker than sorting and scrolling.

[tpavlic]

I'm not arguing against API-based approaches. I just hope that people continue to put pressure on Canvas to build this feature into the main codebase where it belongs. The API-based approaches are only going to be appropriate for a small minority of faculty using the tool, even if university's provide a formal process for allowing API-based tools.

[tmalone2]

This is a wonderful request. Please add soon.

[silja_paymer]

3 years later, I want to vote for this again!

The manual dropping of kids into each group is rough when you have 5 periods with 10 groups each!!!

[mrwnphs]

With Zoom breakout rooms, it would be so nice, if we could create a group file and import it into Canvas and Zoom and then have Canvas groups that match the Zoom breakout room groups.  Wouldn't that be lovely?

[mclean]

I would absolutely vote for this… if I could figure out how to vote.  Does the idea management system no longer involve voting?

[RobDitto]

@mclean instead of votes, this new version of the Canvas Community uses star ratings for idea conversations. (Votes prior to the migration appear to be tracked as "Kudos").

For an illustrated guide, see How do idea conversations work in the Canvas Community? .

[mclean]

Thanks @RobDitto .  Wow, an astonishingly poor interface.  No indication that those stars are for my input, no visual feedback when I click on them.  Numerous people have left comments without giving a star rating—pretty much says it all.

[willmoin]

We need this