When would you use this?
Do you teach more than one section of the same course? Do you teach the same course in different semesters? Did you invest a lot of time setting up an assignment/module/unit one time and you would like to use that same structure again? If you said "yes" to any of this, you may love to know more about how you can reuse content in Canvas! We know that building things in the LMS takes time, so read on to learn about the different ways that you you can reuse things from course-to-course or from semester-to-semester in Canvas.
Instructions:
To reuse materials from a past course, you have three options and what you choose depends on how much of the material you want to bring into the new semester.
- Copy the entire course: Navigate into the new/empty course, and from the Home page select "Import Existing Content" button on far right. From the next screen, choose the type (Copy Canvas Course) and then you can select All Content and click the gold "Add to Import Queue" button. This will take a minute or two, but it’s pretty quick. You will soon see all the content in the new course shell.
- Copy some of the course: Navigate into the new/empty course and follow the same steps above to Import existing Content. But this time, don’t select “All”… instead, choose Select Content and the"Add to Import Queue". Then, a new button labelled "Select Content" will become available in the Content Imports list. Click this button, and a window will open prompting you to select which course items you wish to copy. Finally, click "Select Content" again to close this window and begin the import.
- Use "Copy To" in order to push specific elements forward. This is effectively similar to option 2, but you start in the old/past course instead of the new/empty course. If you are perusing through the old course and you see a module you want to grab, or even just a single element from a module, you can click the three-dot (“more”) menu and choose "Copy To". A panel will appear on the right and you will be prompted to select or type your new course information into the box. And then click Copy. This option is good for bringing one or two things over. But if you are going to take this action more than 5 times, I would say that option 1 or 2 would be more effective. This is not a good option if you are trying to bring over grading criteria and inter-linked things pages and overall structure.
Environment/Applies To:
Canvas
Additional Information:
NOTE: If you are importing large quantities of content into an active course, it may be beneficial to unpublish the course until you have a chance to adjust dates.