Sections in a credit course are automatically synchronized with the corresponding class rosters in goSFU. Sometimes, particularly in larger online courses that lack tutorial sections, instructors may still wish to divide a class into smaller groups. This can usually be achieved by creating a Group Set (also known as student groups) on the course's People page.

In the case that students groups are not sufficient, as a last resort, we can add custom sections to the Canvas course. While these custom sections enable more advanced usage, such as differentiated assignments, the sections will not automatically sync. This means the instructor will have to add and remove students who add or drop the course who are in those sections. 

One use case would be to assign a differentiated assignment to a subset of students, and to assign TAs to be responsible for subsections of a course that don't have goSFU tutorial/lab sections.

Pros:

• To take advantage of features only available to course sections and not student groups (e.g. the use cases above)

Cons:

• Not an officially supported configuration (should be considered last-resort)
• Requires custom setup by CEE/IT support
• Instructors will need to manage enrollments changes (adds/drops) manually

If you prefer to create groups rather than have custom sections created, please review the documentation on how to create groups

Please contact ceehelp@sfu.ca or its-help@sfu.ca if you need custom sections.