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Home > Staff > Content > Copying content from another course

Each teaching period, a brand-new Learning@Griffith course site is created for every course offering. Content used in previous course offerings (e.g., lecture slides, assessment instructions, etc.) are not present in these new sites when they are created. The Course Import Tool makes it easy to extract course content, assignments, and quizzes from previous terms and quickly import them into existing courses.

BEFORE you copy the course

The most effective method to import all content from a Canvas Course into an empty Course shell is to use the ‘Copy a canvas course’ function. This way you can exclude specific content you do not want imported into the new course e.g., Announcements. When doing so, there are a number of things to be aware of:

  • You must be have the role of Teacher in both the current course  you are importing to and the course you are importing from. Other roles like Course Designer and TA  do not have the permission to perform a course copy.
  • Announcements and Discussions do not retain the name of the user who originally created the course content. Additionally, students do not receive announcement notifications for imported announcements. However, a badge indicating a new announcement displays on the Card View and Recent Activity Dashboards. Because of this, it is best practice to not copy over existing announcements and discussions into the new course.
  • Importing a course more than once may have unintended consequences. If you import content into a new course, edit the content in the new course, and later import the previous content again, the imported content will override the existing content.

Copying previous course content into a new (empty) course shell

  1. Go to the current (blank) course
  2. On the menu on the right-hand side of the page, click Import Existing Content
  3. Under Import Content, select Copy a Canvas Course from the Content Type from the drop-down menu
  4. Search for the course you'd like to copy the content from by typing into the Search for a course text box
  5. Under Content, select whether you'd like to copy All content or Select specific content to copy
  6. Click Import
  7. If you selected Select specific content, there will be a button to select content on the import page under 'Current Jobs'
  8. Once the import is complete, go through your assignment submission points and adjust the due dates for the new trimester

Copying single course items

  1. Click on the ellipsis menu (3 dots) beside the item
  2. Select Copy To from the menu
  3. Type in the name/ID of the course you'd like to copy to
  4. Click Copy

Sending items to colleagues

  1. Click on the ellipsis menu (3 dots) beside the item you wish to send
  2. Select Send To from the menu
  3. Type in the name or email address of the colleague you wish to send the item to
  4. Click 'Send'

Accessing content that has been sent to you

  1. Click on Account in the left-side menu
  2. Click on Shared Content
  3. You'll see a list of all content that has been received
  4. Click on the ellipsis menu (3 dots) (you'll have options to Preview, Import or Remove the item from the list)
  5. Click Import
  6. Begin typing the course name/code and select it from the search
  7. Click Import
  8. The item will import into the relevant area in your course

AFTER you copy the course

When manually copying a course, the user who copies the course will automatically be added to the course with an teacher role.

  • Enrolment-related data, which includes course users, collaborations, conferences, groups, and sections, and feature option settings are not included in course copies.
  • Copying content retains any links or files associated with the content.
  • Make sure to check the Course Navigation Menu for which links are available/hidden from students. The link will have a small icon of an eye with a cross through it to indicate that the link is currently hidden from students.

    Some settings under the more options link in the Course Settings are not carried over. You will need to compare these with the old course to see if they are setup as intended.

  • Canvas Calendar item locations (e.g., office hours slots with an assigned office location) are not included in course imports. These will need to be setup again as required.
  • Group sets do not copy as part of the course copy process. Any existing group sets in the new course will be linked to a group set with the same name (if you have previously set them up beforehand in the new course). However, if there are no group sets with the same name available in the new course, group assignments will be linked to a newly created placeholder group set called Project Groups.
  • If you import external tool content (i.e., PebblePad, Echo360 etc) from a course, the external tool may need to be reconfigured in the course that receives the content in order for that content to be accessible.
  • SCORM content packages are included in course copies irrespectively of what was selected in the course copy process.
  • MasteryPaths conditional items are not retained in course imports, and paths must be re-created after the import is completed.

Assessment course copy gotchas

After the course copy, a default Assignment Group will appear called Assignments. This will need to be removed if it is not required.

  • When copying across individual assignments, assignments are placed in an assignment group called Imported Assignments. However, assignments can be moved into other assignment groups as necessary.
  • Sections are course specific, and therefore not copied across.
  • If you choose to import all content or select for course settings to be imported into the new course, the current Grade Posting Policy of the original course will also be imported across.
  • When selecting assignments only, Canvas imports all assessment items within the Assignments page (including any associated quizzes and discussions). Assignments will remain in their assignment groups if an entire assignment group or all assignments are imported.
  • If an assignment/page is unpublished in a course when it was copied or exported, the assignment/page will also be unpublished in the content import.
  • Item Banks used in New Quizzes are not automatically shared with the new course. If there are New Quizzes with Item Banks associated in the old course, these permissions will need to be updated after they are copied across.
  • Markbook does not retain the way you have organized columns in the previous course. You will need to reorganize these to your preferred setup in the new course.

Link Validation Tool

As an instructor, you can verify links to course content throughout your course to ensure they are valid. You can check these links using the course link validator, which searches through course content and returns invalid or unresponsive course content links in both published and unpublished content. However, please note that some links flagged as unresponsive are inaccessible by Canvas servers and will still work for students.

The link validator also includes deleted links. Deleted links are links that are still in the course, but their linked content has been deleted (such as a course file or page).

How to use the Link Validation Tool

  1. In the course navigation menu open Settings.
  2. In the right hand sidebar, click Validate Links in Content.
  3. Select Start Link Validation.

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