New "Assign To" Interface

As of July 2024, Canvas now allows instructors to assign Pages and Modules to sections and/or individual students. With this update comes a new interface for managing how items are assigned and given a due date. Previously, course content in Modules and Pages was available to all students in a Canvas course. Now, instructors have the ability to customize the availability of these areas of Canvas.

NOTE: Canvas may make additional updates to this new feature and new interface in the coming months. This page will be updated if additional changes are made to how Canvas course items are assigned.

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Assigning Modules and Pages (and Other Course Items)

Most items in Canvas default to being available to all students in a course. If a course item is assigned to a section, it will be available to all students in that section. Further customization of assignments, such as changing the due date for an individual student, will override previous assignment information so the student will see their individual due date, not the section's due date.

Items in a Module inherit the assignment information at the Module level. For example, if you create a quiz in a Module that is assigned to a specific section and don't specify the assignment further, that quiz will become assigned to that section. If the quiz should have availability or due dates, that information should be added to the quiz directly (since it is not inherited by the Module's assignment).

See this Canvas guide for more information on availability dates and due dates Links to an external site..

While files can be placed in a Module that is assigned to a specific student or section, it's possible that students who are not assigned that Module may be able to view files in the non-assigned Module by clicking through the module's next arrows. Instructors should exercise caution with files in assigned Modules.

As before, Announcements can still be customized to sections and given an availability window.

Customization Options by Course Item Type

	Assign to Section	Assign to Student	Availability Dates	Due Date
Announcement	Yes	No	Yes	No
Page	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Module	Yes	Yes	No	No
Assignment	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Quiz	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Graded Discussion	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ungraded Discussion	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
File	via Module placement	via Module placement	Yes	No

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Assign To Interface Update

The way to assign a graded course item (a quiz, assignment, or discussion) has not changed; the "Assign To" portion is located in-line at the bottom of the edit page for a graded course element. The adding of a deadline and availability dates for individual course pages or modules has moved from the bottom of the edit page to a slide-out tray that is opened whenever an instructor clicks "Assign To" from Pages or Modules within a course.

• Module (for entire module or individual items in the Module)

 

• Top of the settings page for Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, and Pages

 

• Below the content and settings for Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, and Pages (in edit mode)

The new Assign To interface retains the ability to assign an item to additional students or sections with different dates by clicking the +Add button. For example, if one student will receive an extension on a Quiz, that is added to the existing quiz by clicking the +Add button and entering that student's availability and deadline details.

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Assign To Workflow and Navigation

With all these dates and assignments on various items, instructors want to avoid creating conflicts in item availability. When importing content from a previous course, be sure to pay special attention to assignments and dates for all course items. 

Here are some scenarios and things to keep in mind as you assign content with the new interface:

Availability Inheritance

Items in a Module inherit the assignment details of the Module, which is displayed in the Assign To tray for that item. While items may display multiple assignments, the most specific information among those assignments will determine the availability of the item to students.

Page Placement

While a Page can be assigned to sections or students, the placement of an item (Quiz, Assignment, etc.) on that page with its own assignment details to specific students or sections will not ensure the availability of that item to the students for whom the Page is available. If students will navigate to content from Pages, double check that all items linked from a given Page also have appropriate availability to specific sections or students.

Order of Operations

When building a course site, it is important to consider how students should encounter course content. For example, will students be navigating to all course items from Modules? Or will they go directly to the menu items for things like Assignments and Files to access content?

While building, instructors should be consistent in their order of operations when building course items and assigning them. We recommend that instructors assign from global to granular - start with the content that is common to all students then assign the content that will be limited to a section or subset of students.

Other Notes

• While a valuable tool for checking other course links, Canvas's Course Link Validator Links to an external site. will not detect assignment conflicts within a course.
• Group Assignments Links to an external site. are unchanged. Also, Groups are not an assignable category for course items (Quizzes, Assignments, etc.), only sections or individual students. 
• Modules pre-requisites Links to an external site. do not respect Module assignments — the Assign To function supersedes the Module prerequisites. For example, if Module A is assigned to Section A and is set to be a pre-requisite for Module B, and Module B is assigned to Section B, the students of Section B will still be able to access their Module despite not having accessed (or completed) Module A. Thus, instructors who wish to use Module pre-requisites should take extra care to ensure the assignment details of each Module in a sequence.
• Instructors who wish to review their assignments of course content to ensure functional and intended access are encouraged to schedule a consultation with Teaching and Learning Technologies.
• If a conflicting deadline or availability window is entered in the global Edit Assignment Dates Links to an external site. page, the page will not save and will display an error message.