[ARCHIVED] Canvas Commons Importing

[lbarratt1]

Does importing a course from Commons wipe out all content in an existing course? I've had various results with this.

If so, how should updates from the "master" to child be handled?

Thank you kindly.

Leona

[ericwerth]

Hi  @lbarratt1 .  I tried multiple Commons imports into one of my sandbox courses and didn't seem to find any existing content being wiped out.  Perhaps  @stuart_ryan ‌ will have some insight.  In a previous development idea, https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9293-enable-contextual-course-view-in-canvas-commons?sr=search...‌, he indicated to me that he had experienced some content being overwritten in instances where a module was downloaded from Commons more than once.

[kblack · Accepted solution]

I believe you are onto something, ericwerth‌, as I just ran into this yesterday.  A faculty member reported that content was overwritten after she imported something into her class from Commons that she said she had imported into that class before.  And that's the issue.  Even though this is not specifically pointed out in the Commons Guides, this IS pointed out here:  How do I copy content from another Canvas course? specifically in the blue area at the top:

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.

So, I think it's safe to say that material imported from Commons will behave the same way.  You import something once?  No problem.  A second time?  Problem.  And somewhere in the Community (and now I can't find it, of course...) I also saw mentioned that it does not even matter if you renamed something, it will still overwrite it, courtesy of the fact that each item has its own unique ID number behind the scenes.

[ericwerth]

That is great information  @kblack .  I would have thought that if the names of content were changed that the content would not be overwritten.  I will definitely keep this in mind moving forward!‌

[stuart_ryan]

Thank you for the tag ericwerth, apologies for the delay, but  @kblack  has covered this off perfectly!

I have had this exact scenario happen. One thing I would add would be to look at using the update function of Commons. Once a course has content imported, if the author publishes an update to commons you can click on the update tab and bring in the newly changed content. You can see this documented at https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-11217-38287725365 Not sure if you are looking for this functionality, but doesn't hurt to let you know it is there.

Hope that helps!

Stuart

[sabrea]

Hello. After importing an item from a different course into the current one and seeing the green screen " You have successfully imported ..." the item is not appearing in the course.  My question is: Where does it go? Is there a default location? Is there a way to double-check and see if it actually imported?  Information I have found pertaining to this matter is too vague. Thank you. 

Alejandro Sabre, Modesto Junior College, California

[CKongUCLA]

I've had teachers want to pull content from Canvas commons at various stages of their course. I understand if you're starting with a brand new Canvas course, it's not a big deal to pull from Canvas Commons, but if someone has content create (a full syllabus, settings, etc), and when they import from the Commons, their content is overwritten.

Is it valuable to have a message that pops up at the import page with "Do you have existing content in your Canvas site, if so consider selecting specific content." Or something to that effect?