Instructors and students can create groups in Canvas course sites that provide an online working space for projects and assignments. A "Group Set" will create a designated number of groups, and a "Group" will create an individual group.

Creating a Group Set

Navigate to the course
Click on People in the left navigation
Click on the blue button +Group Set
Name the Group Set (Note: this is the name of the set of groups, so the name might be the title of the assignment or project. The instructor or students may change the name of the individual groups within the set later.)
Indicate if self-sign-up for groups will be allowed
Indicate if the students should be automatically split into a designated number of groups or if you'll be creating the groups manually

Manually Creating Groups

Navigate to the course
Click on People in the left navigation
Click on the tab of the desired Group Set
Click on +Group
Name the Group
Indicate how many members should be in the Group
Drag the name of the students that should be enrolled in the group to the Group Name

Creating Group Assignments and Discussions

Any assignment or discussion can be created for groups. When creating the assignment or discussion in Canvas, look for the Group options in the set up.

Check the box next to This is a Group Assignment/Discussion
Indicate whether you want to Assign Grades to Each Student Individually.
NOTE: if you don't select this, each student in the group will receive the same grade
Select the Group from the drop-down menu (or create a new group set)

*Note: Group assignments require only one student in the group to upload a submission on behalf of the entire group.

Visiting a Group Site

A group site is automatically created for each student group for collaboration purposes. Each site has similar tools to the main course such as Announcements and Files.

Instructors have access to all areas of their course sites, including group pages. It is not necessary for the instructor to enroll themselves into each group. To visit a group page:

Go to the People page within the course site
Click the desired Group Set tab at the top of the page
Click on the setting icon to the right of the group and select Visit Group Homepage

an image of the settings icon for the group with "Visit Group Homepage" highlighted