Why would you want to use assignment groups?
Assignment groups in Canvas allow you to organize your content and assign weights to different categories based on your grading needs and your syllabus. Within each group, activities can be assigned points to distinguish the total impact on the group grade. Additionally, you can ask Canvas to do things like drop the lowest grade in a given group, as detailed in the first scenario below.
Using Assignment Groups: Two Examples
To discuss different uses for assignment groups, the two examples below illustrate two different common scenarios.
Example One: A group of similar items with equal weight
For this example, let's say your syllabus lists weekly discussion boards as worth 30% of the overall grade, with the lowest grade dropped. You could create an assignment group worth 30% of the grade and call it "Discussion Posts." As long as each item within the group has the same number of points (in this case, 2), they will each be weighed equally.
Further, you can go into your group settings and tell Canvas to drop the lowest discussion grade.
Now, as students complete discussions, they'll see their overall discussion grade, with the lowest grade dropped, and that grade will impact 30% of their overall weighted grade (assuming you've put everything into weighted groups).
Example Two: A group of items of different weights
Rather than a group of activities of the same weight, you can also make a group that is itself weighted by points. For this example, let's say your syllabus says you have a midterm project that is worth 20% of the overall course grade. Within this project, there is a brainstorming discussion worth 20% of the project grade, a rough draft that is also worth 20% of the project grade, a peer review worth 10% of the project grade, and a final draft that is worth the remaining 50%.
You could make an assignment group (here called "Midterm Project") and make it worth 20% of the overall grade. From here, you can create the other pieces of the assignment (or move them into the group if they're already created) and assign them a proportional number of points.
In this example, the brainstorming activity and rough draft are each worth 20 points, while the peer review is worth 10 and the final draft is worth 50, though you could also double the points if you want a 100 point value for the final project. Now, when grades are inputted, each piece of the project will affect the project grade and the overall weighted grade. The final draft, for example, would affect 50% of the group grade, but only 10% of the overall course grade.
So how do I set up assignment groups?
First, you'll want to head to the "Assignments" link in your course's navigation menu. Here, you'll find all potentially graded course activities, including quizzes, discussion posts, and traditional assignments.
On the top right of the page, you should see a +Group button next to the +Assignment button
Note that if you do not see the +Group button, you can enable assignment group weights by clicking on the ellipses next to +Assignment and clicking on "Assignment Groups Weight."
Next, click on that +Group button and create your assignment group. If you want to weight the group, enter the percentage in the "% if total grade" box:
Click save, and your group is created!
From here, you can click the plus sign in the group menu to add an assignment, or you can move existing activities into the group by clicking the dotted lines on the left-hand side of each activity's menu tile and dragging it into the group.
Group Options:
Within the group, you can adjust the way Canvas weighs content by clicking on the vertical ellipses and then clicking "edit:"
Here, you can rename the group or change the overall value, and you can choose whether to drop lowest (or highest) scores. You can also designate an activity that should never be dropped by using the "Never Drop" option.
