Canvas Collaborations allows students to work together on a single Google item (document, spreadsheet, or presentation) that is easily accessed from within your course site. Collaboration items can be shared and edited in real-time by multiple users and saved to multiple devices. All that is required is for you and your students to link your personal Google accounts to your Canvas accounts.

Why use it?

• Simple & easy: Minimal setup required, and this tool allows students to collaborate with one another on a group project without them needing to  exchange email addresses.
• Supervision: As the instructor, you can view students' collaborative documents at any time.
• Sharing flexibility: You can select students one at a time, or share a Collaboration with an existing student group in your course site.

Keep in mind

• The user who originally created a collaboration item is able to delete it both within Canvas and within the Google external application. For this reason, we strongly recommend that only instructors create Collaborations. This way, it is extremely difficult for a student to accidentally delete a collaboration item.
• We recommend that you use Google drive collaborations, but that students be careful if accessing the collaboration item from within Google's interface. Because Collaborations are using external applications, the settings in Google need to be kept in mind. A student may accidentally remove their access to a Google drive collaboration item if they remove it from within their Google drive account.
• Google Collaboration items can be shared with a maximum of 50 users and there is a limit to how many of those users can access the collaborative item at the same time.

Additional resources

• What are Collaborations?
• How do I use the Collaborations Index Page?
• How do I create a Google Drive Collaboration?
• How do I delete a Collaboration?
• How do I view Collaborations as a student?