[ARCHIVED] Exporting and importing

[silvamayflower]

I am exporting courses from my company's Canvas to my own private teacher account so as to preserve them for future use.  They seem to be exporting well, but of the three I've tried to import into my account, one has imported successfully, but of the other 2, one has stuck on "queued" (having previously stopped at 8% and refused to go further), and the last one has a green bar saying "uploading" which has remained static with all of the 'import content' info above it greyed out.

I have a number of courses to export/import before the deadline at the end of the month, and I can't be doing with this all the time.  What is the problem?

[Stef_retired · Accepted solution]

@silvamayflower  By "private teacher account," are you referencing an account that you created for yourself in Free For Teachers? If so, it's possible that the size of the courses you exported exceeds the course quota granted to FFT users. Please refer to Canvas Account Comparisons PDF for details.

[Stef_retired · Accepted solution]

@silvamayflower  By "private teacher account," are you referencing an account that you created for yourself in Free For Teachers? If so, it's possible that the size of the courses you exported exceeds the course quota granted to FFT users. Please refer to Canvas Account Comparisons PDF for details.

[silvamayflower]

Thanks for your response.  However, it doesn't seem logical.  First of all, I thought I had checked whether there was a limit to size or number of courses.  Second, the apparent limit would appear to be the same as that given to us by the tech team in our organisation, so it's highly unlikely if it was small enough for them, that it's too big here.  Thirdly, the mode of stopping doesn't make sense; surely there would have been a warning message, not just a 'stuck in the queue',  or even more strangely, a completely frozen upload?

But how do I find out the sizes of the courses I want to import?  The original courses have a lot of corporate stuff in them that would need to be stripped down for future use anyway, so maybe I could do some of that before exporting if I knew how to check.

[silvamayflower]

I've just had a message saying your answer was accepted as a solution.  It wasn't.  I'm still seeking further help on this, including how I check the file sizes, which are unlikely to exceed the quota, and also querying why then the behaviour of 'queueing' and a complete freeze of downloads would lead to this conclusion. Without further help, I'm going to have to start again, in the hope that the second time around the same things don't happen.  I worry that my reply will remain unread, as someone thinks the answer was actually a solution!

[Stef_retired]

@silvamayflower  For the stuck import, please ask Canvas Support to have a look using the pathway to support provided by your school. General instructions for contacting support are in How do I get help with Canvas as an instructor? 

[Stef_retired]

@silvamayflower  Questions in this forum can have multiple solutions, and the conversation often still continues after a solution has been marked in a thread.

[Stef_retired]

@silvamayflower  If your organization provided you with an account (the one you've called the private teacher account) in their paid instance, then my theory about Free For Teachers quotas wouldn't apply to your situation.

Stripping out resource hogs (uploaded videos are a prime offender) is a great plan for any course migration. You can see how much space each course uses through the Files tab in that course:  How do I view course files as an instructor?

[silvamayflower]

Hi again.  I think we're at cross-purposes here.  My organisation has a corporate Canvas account which I use with them.  We were told that the limit was 500mb per course, which appears to be the same as the Free for Teacher account.  My organisation didn't provide me with a Free for Teacher account.  The one I erroneously probably called a 'private teacher account' is i fact my own Free for Teacher account.  However, unless my organisation changed their original instructions and didn't tell us, the limit appears to be the same - 500mb, presumably as set by the organisation.

I would still like to know just how I tell how big my course is.  This would undoubtedly help me to see whether in fact my corporate courses are larger than 500mb or not.  That would answer that question.

Secondly, you don't answer my point as to the behaviour of the courses.  Surely the system would have indicated that the file was too large, rather than simply freezing in the queue or indeed freezing the page mid-upload.  Or is this not the case?  Does Canvas not actually tell you when your file is too large?

I will of course go back and see if there is anything I can logically strip out of the courses before transferring them, but I have to point out that any videos included would be tiny and few and far between.  Surely, though, there must be a way for me to access the size information of the courses, so at least I can rule that out.

[Stef_retired · Accepted solution]

@silvamayflower  This lesson details the various messages that display upon importing or attempting to import a course:  How do I view the status of current and prior cour... 

As mentioned upthread, instructors can view how much of their quota a particular course uses in the Files tab of that course, and when a course import is "stuck" the best course of action is to contact Canvas Support—I suggest using the link on your school's instance rather than the Free For Teachers instance—and explain the situation in the ticket description.

[silvamayflower]

Ok, I'll do that.  Thanks for trying.