If you’ll be copying and importing a Canvas course for a new term, it’s important to be aware that by default, group set setting in Canvas aren’t retained after your course has been imported. If you’ve used multiple group sets in your course, renamed groups within group sets, or used any non-default group settings, your changes unfortunately will not get copied into a new import of your course. Instead, Canvas will automatically create a single, generic group set and assign all group discussions, assignments, and release conditions to that group.
If you’ll be copying a course that has several different group sets, a workaround is available. If you create group sets in your new blank course shell with exactly the same names as in your original course before importing your content, your group sets will be automatically associated with the right assignments after import.
This workaround can save you some time and effort, but it’s unfortunately not a perfect solution: the option to automatically split students into a certain number of groups–which normally appears after you manually create a brand new group set–will no longer be available if you use this workaround.
If you’d like to see the ability to automatically copy group settings added to Canvas, you can vote for this suggestion over at the Canvas Studio.