Groups and sections in Canvas

Groups and Sections comparison

 

Groups

Sections

 

Groups

Sections

1

Guides

Groups

Sections

2

Accessed via

Course > People > Groups tab

Students who are in groups will see a Groups tab on the left-hand Global Navigation Menu on their interface.

Course > Settings > Sections tab

3

Purpose

  1. To organise students for group work, presentations, projects etc.

  2. For collaboration.

Student lists for lectures, tutorials, seminar, laboratory, recitation.

4

Creation

  1. Manual, not synced with EduRec.

  2. Create via random assignment, manual assignment, by file import or student sign-up.

  1. Automatic, based on information from EduRec.

  2. For official academic courses, sections are not editable by users.

5

Download lists

You can download the group lists by following these instructions.

(While the instructions are for importing groups, look out for the Download Course Roster CSV File step.)

Download student lists with section information.

6

Others

Each group has a group homepage, which allows the group (and their teachers) to access a mini-Canvas consisting of: Announcements, Pages, People, Discussions, Files and Collaborations.

Create attendance list.

Groups and Sections in Canvas tools

  1. Tools where neither groups nor sections are applicable are not listed.

  2. Files, Modules, Pages and Videos/Panopto cannot be assigned to groups nor sections.

Tool

Groups

Sections

Tool

Groups

Sections

1

Announcements

Not applicable.

Post announcements to sections.

2

Assignments

Group assignments
(not applicable to external tools e.g. Turnitin).

Differentiated dates for individual sections.

3

Attendance (Roll Call)

Not applicable.

Take attendance by section.

4

Calendar

Group appointment sign-up.

Not applicable.

5

Collaborations

Can be set up using groups.

Not applicable.

6

Discussions

Create a discussion to be assigned to groups.

Discussion appears in respective group's home page.

Create a discussion to be assigned to sections.

Separate discussions for each section appears in Discussions.

7

Grades

Filter students by groups and/or sections.

Filter students by groups and/or sections.

8

Inbox

Send messages to groups.

Send messages to sections.

9

Quizzes

Not applicable.

Differentiated dates for individual sections.

10

SpeedGrader

Grade group assignments.

Filter student list by sections.

11

Zoom

Not applicable.

Invite up to 3 sections to join meeting.
Add up to 5 sections to view recordings.

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