How do I enable/disable students from making their own groups?
You will learn how to enable (or disable) students to make their own Groups within your course in Canvas.
Currently, the default setting is to allow students to create their own Groups.
Allowing students to create their own Groups within your course may cause some confusion if you use groups in your course for graded Assignments or Discussions. Students will all see the student-made Group Set and Groups. You, as the Teacher in the course, can delete the Groups, but not the Group Set (called "Student Groups").
1. Enter your course and scroll down to Settings in the course navigation menu.
2. Scroll down the Settings page and click on 'more options' link.
3. Tick the 'Let student organize their own groups' tick box to deselect that option.
By default this option is selected. To remove this option, so that students cannot add their own Groups to your course, tick the box to remove the checkmark.
4. Click on Update Course Details.
Here is the message you will see if a student makes their own Group.
This is how your People > Groups page will look after a student has made a new Group. They cannot enroll students into a group, but can allow others to join the group themselves.
Tip: If a student has created a Group that you do not want, you can remove members or delete the Group, but you cannot delete the Group Set called "Student Groups".
Article Summary
You have now learned how to enable/disable student-made groups within your course in Canvas.