Oxford Groups (The Group Enrolment Tool - GET)
The Oxford Group Enrolment Tool (GET) employs Oxford SITS data and can be used to bulk enrol students onto a programme course in Canvas. The enrolment data in your Canvas course will automatically update if students join or leave a programme of study in SITS.
- Unit Groups: Some or all the members of a particular department or college to be enrolled on a Canvas course (see Unit Groups in the index below).
- Ad-Hoc Groups: Bespoke groups of students (or staff) which can be reused across multiple Canvas courses. For example, you may need to enrol particular students studying an optional stream in your programme, or a specific group of tutors or other staff members who need access to multiple canvas courses.
Please see guidance on creating and enrolling Ad-Hoc groups into one or more Canvas courses.
Notes:
- For brand new courses being built in Canvas in advance of their start date, the (empty) 'Year 1 in 20xx/yy' group (see section 2 below) may not appear in the GET interface (and only the 'incoming group' may be selected). The danger is that in subsequent years, the missing group will not be present and those students will not have access to the Canvas course. In such a case, the administrator will need to revisit the new Canvas course once students start arriving and enrol the 'Year 1' group (which should then appear in the GET).
- Besides the above scenario, if you are perusing the hierarchy of GET groups to find a required group (and it does not appear where you might expect to see it), remember that a search within the tool may find it.
- The GET undertakes a group update process at midday each day; this process can take up to 5 hours to complete. During this period the functionality of the GET will be unrestricted, although it may appear to be somewhat slower than at other times.
Index
- How to find the GET
- Types of student cohorts
- Enrolling students from one or more programme groups onto a single Canvas course
- Enrolling students from one or more programme groups onto multiple Canvas courses (Admin role)
- Deactivating an individual's access to a Canvas course after they have been enrolled via the GET
- Unit groups
- Simple and compound rules
1. How to find the GET
Within a Canvas course, select Oxford Groups which should automatically be visible on the Course Navigation menu on the left.
If you don't see Oxford Groups on the menu, select Settings. Find Oxford Groups in the lower list (inactive tools), and drag it to the top list of active tools. Although it will appear (in black font) to you, it does not appear for students. You can check this by activating Student View from the Home Page.
2. Types of student cohorts
When you search for your required Programme of Study in the GET you will see several groups as in the example below:
- BA History, Incoming 2021/22
- BA History, Year 1 in 2021/22
- BA History, Year 2 in 2021/22
- BA History, Year 3 in 2021/22
Note:
- If you want to add a first year cohort to a Canvas course, we recommend adding both the 'Incoming in 20xx/yy' and 'Year 1 in 20xx/yy' groups. Students appear in the Year 1 group only when they are enrolled in a course in SITS; however, they are in the 'incoming group' as soon as they have activated their SSO. The advantage of the latter is that it will give students access to Canvas before they arrive in Oxford in person.
3. Enrolling students from one or more programme groups onto a single Canvas course
The 'simple rule' explained: Users belonging to the selected group(s) will be enrolled in your Canvas course.
1. From the Dashboard click on the course you would like to add the students to.
2. To access the Group Enrolment Tool (GET) click on the Oxford Groups button near the bottom of the Course Navigation menu.
3. Select the Rules tab at the top of the screen.
When created, a 'Rule' will enable you to select the appropriate group/s containing the students that need to be enrolled on your Canvas course.
4. Click the + New Rule button on the right side of the screen and select Simple from the drop-down list.
5. A new window will appear. From the Assigned Role drop-down list select Student.
6. Click on + Oxford Groups button on the right-hand side of the screen.
7. A sliding pane will open on the right. Start typing the group you are looking for in the search field and select the group from the drop-down list. In the Search field, you can enter either the name of the group or the appropriate SITS Programme Code (e.g. UA_CLEL6M1) if you know it.
8. Double click on the group and navigate through until you find the specific cohort required, then click the Add button.
Note: You may need to navigate down through a layer or two in order to find the specific cohort containing the required students. Of course, you may wish to add a cohort at a higher level, e.g. all students in BA Geography, in which case, use the Add button at the higher level.
9. To add another programme group, select the Programme Groups in the breadcrumb on the top left of the sliding pane.
10. Search again for the required programme group using either the group name or SITS programme code and navigate through the sub groups until you find the required cohort.
11. Click the Add button on the second group, and then click the X in the top right corner to close the sliding pane.
12. In the bottom right-hand corner under Associated Groups, the total number of students in both selected groups will be shown.
Note: The total number of users displays the number of students who have activated their Single Sign On (SSO); therefore the value might be lower initially, until all students have completed the activation.
13. Click the hyperlinked number of users, to see the names of the students.
14. Under Section click on the Section Placement drop-down list and choose either Enrol in Existing Section, Create Section or Create Section for Each Group.
15. If Enrol in Existing Section is chosen, use the Section drop-down list on the right to choose the appropriate Section.
16. If Create section is selected then you can enter a Section name and an optional Start and End date for the section. It is recommended you create a Section for "All Students". This will have the advantage that you can message students without sending any notifications to academics.
17. If Create section for each group is selected then you can enter a Start and End date for the section. A section is created with the name of each programme group, and enrols all the students from that group into that section. This page provides more information about sections: Understanding Sections.
18. Click Save and then click Confirm and the students will now be enrolled in your Canvas course.
4. Enrolling students from one or more programme groups onto multiple Canvas courses (Admin role)
This method enables Local Canvas Coordinators and Unit Admins to enrol students from a particular group(s) onto multiple Canvas courses using a Simple Rule.
1. From the Admin button in the Global Navigation menu click on the appropriate Sub-account.
2. To access the Group Enrolment Tool (GET), click on the Oxford Groups button near the bottom of the Course Navigation menu.
3. Select the Rules tab at the top of the screen.
When created, a rule will enable the selection of the appropriate group(s) containing the students that need to be enrolled on a course.
4. Click the + New Rule button on the right side of the screen and select Simple from the drop-down list.
5. A new window will appear. From the Assigned Role drop-down list select Student.
6. Click on + Programme Groups button on the right-hand side of the screen.
7. A sliding pane will open to the right. Start typing the group you are looking for in the search field and select the group from the drop-down list.
8. Double click on the group and navigate through until you find the specific cohort required and click the Add button.
Note: The Add button will only be displayed when you have clicked through to the specific cohort containing the required students .
9. To add another group, select the Programme Groups in the breadcrumb on the top left of the sliding pane and enter the next group into the Add Programme Groups search window.
10. Search for the required cohort and navigate through the sub groups until you find it.
11. Click the Add button on the second group, then click the X in the top right corner to close the sliding pane.
12. In the bottom right-hand corner under Associated Groups the total amount of students that appear in the groups will be shown.
Note: The total number of users displays the number of students that have activated their Single Sign On (SSO), therefore the value might be lower initially until all students have completed the activation.
13. Click the Total hyperlink, to see the names of the students.
14. To select courses into which these students need to be enrolled, select the + Courses button above the 'Associated Courses' box:
15. You can use the filter to see the courses that appear in a particular Term or Search for the required course in the list of courses available in this sub-account.
16. Select the Add button; that course will be marked as an 'Associated course' and all the students selected earlier will be enrolled on it.
17. If you need to enrol the same student cohorts on further courses, search for those courses and select the Add button.
17. Under Section click on the Section Placement drop-down list and choose either Enrol in Existing Section, Create Section for Each Course or Create Section for Each Group.
18. If Enrol in Existing Section is chosen, use the Section drop-down list on the right to choose the appropriate section.
19. If Create Section for Each Course is selected then you can enter a Section Name and an optional Start and End date for the section. It is recommended you create a Section called 'All Students'. This will have the advantage that you can message students without sending any notifications to academics.
20. If Create Section for Each Group is selected then you can enter a Start and End Date for the section. A Section is created with the name of each group, and enrols all of the students from the group into that Section. To understand more about section please use the following link Understanding sections.
21. Click Save, then click Confirm. All the students will now be enrolled in all the selected courses.
5. Deactivating an individual's access to a Canvas course after they have been enrolled via the GET
Note: If you wish to 'remove' ('deactivate') individual students who were enrolled via the Oxford Groups tool, please follow the instructions below to deactive them systematically. If you try to remove them using the People tool, they will be reinstated the next time data for the Oxford Groups tool is synchronised.
1. From the Dashboard click on the course in which you would like to deactivate the student.
2. Click Oxford Groups in the Course Navigation menu and check you are on the Enrolments tab at the top of the page.
3. Click the student you wish to deactivate and a sliding pane will appear on the right-hand side of the screen.
4. Click the toggle under Active.
6. Click the Confirm button when the Change Status box appears.
7. Click the People button on your course, the student should now have inactive next to their name.
The above steps regarding deactivating an individual's access after they have been enrolled via the GET are demonstrated in the video below.
6. Unit Groups
Unit Groups: These groups refer to all staff or all students in a particular department, faculty, school or college. You may wish to enrol such groups into a Canvas course, e.g. a Research Methods course. In the Oxford Groups tool, select Unit Groups and then drill down through the University structure to find the required college or department.
The tool allows you to find All Staff or All Students in a particular unit and enrol them in the course with the appropriate Canvas role (e.g. student, teacher, course administrator).
7. Simple and compound rules
Two types of rules can be created in order to manage groups to be enrolled in the Canvas course: simple rules and compound rules. A simple rule enables you to enrol people that appear in any of your selected groups (the union of selected groups); a compound rule enables you to enrol a subset of people who appear in two (or more) groups at the same time, e.g. all students on programme X in college Y (the intersection of selected groups):