Participants in a Canvas course can be divided into groups much like in eClass (Moodle) however there are some key differences which will be outlined in this article. 

Most notable is that it is NOT possible to have anonymous groups - if placed in groups, students will be able to see and interact with their group mates and use all the features available on the groups home page. This CANNOT be disabled.

Functional Differences Between Canvas and Moodle

Creating Groups (Canvas how-to articles)

The basic practices for creating groups are well documented in the Canvas guides:

• Creating Group Sets (including auto-creation of groups in a set)
• Creating a Single Group in a Set
• Importing Groups (via CSV)

Additional notes:

• When creating groups, it is possible to specify group leaders who can control membership (add/remove users) and edit the group name.
• Since students have access to an area that shows their groups across courses, instructors should add a short course code identifying their course in front of the group name when auto-creating groups (eg. Math 101 - Group...)

Group Self-Sign Up

It is possible to allow students to easily sign up for a group; however, this option will only be available to students if the People in the course left navigation tab is visible.

• Creating Self-Sign Up Groups.

When students visit the People tab, they will see groups with the option to join.

Group Home Page Functions

Once groups have been created, students in them will have access to a Group Home Page with functions similar to those found at the course level. The Group Home Page cannot be disabled. Group home pages are always visible to and can be moderated by course instructors.

• Home: a homepage landing screen that populates with a feed of any activities from the sub-functions below, eg. discussion topics, collaborations.

• Announcements: Important messages that should go to all group members can be posted. Any messages posted wil send a notifcation email message.

• Pages: Group members can create shared pages using the Canvas RCE editor.

• People: The list of group members.

• Discussions: Discussion topics added to the group.

• Files: Files uploaded and shared with the group.

• Collaborations: Shared editable google docs. The docs are owned by the creator with all other group members added as editors.

Group Assignments

When configuring an assignment as a group assignment, it's important to have groups established prior to publishing, and in order to prevent submissions from ungrouped students, assign it to groups rather than everyone. For details, see the note in the KB article Using Canvas Assignments

More info on Groups

• https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/tkb-p/Instructor#Groups