Groups in Canvas are used as a collaborative tool where students can work together on group projects and assignments. So if an instructor anticipates having group assignments they can setup groups in a course. Learn more about Groups in the Canvas Instructor’s guide. Groups might be useful in the type of online course where a cohort of students follows a fixed schedule and learns together. Groups might be less useful for self-paced asynchronous courses where students start at any time and don’t interact very much with other students.