Copying Quizzes and Outcomes into other courses

[jlong300]

I created a quiz and added outcomes to it in my shell course. I then tried to copy the quiz into all my other course sections. The quiz copied fine but the outcomes didn't go with it. Do I have to manually enter the outcomes for each question in each course section or is there something I'm missing. 

[Steven_S · Accepted solution]

Instead of using the copy feature from the quiz itself, try using "copy a canvas course." 

Go to course settings, from the right-side menu select "import course content"

In content type select "copy a canvas course" and then select the course with the quiz and outcomes.

Choose "select specific content"

Select the quiz and also any rubric associated with the outcome. 

I think this should import your outcomes, and retain the association to the quiz, but if not, there is also a way to import outcomes: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-import-outcomes-for-a-course/ta-p/702

[Steven_S · Accepted solution]

Instead of using the copy feature from the quiz itself, try using "copy a canvas course." 

Go to course settings, from the right-side menu select "import course content"

In content type select "copy a canvas course" and then select the course with the quiz and outcomes.

Choose "select specific content"

Select the quiz and also any rubric associated with the outcome. 

I think this should import your outcomes, and retain the association to the quiz, but if not, there is also a way to import outcomes: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-import-outcomes-for-a-course/ta-p/702

[Parish]

But doesn't "Copy a Canvas Course" end up making an entirely new course?  How can you copy outcomes from one course to another?  How can a department share outcomes and resources??

[Steven_S]

There is an "import from commons" on your home page.  Don't use that; it will import everything saved in whatever course you copy.  Specifically, in the right side menu of course settings (not the home page) there is "import course content."  The content type "copy a canvas course" allows you to copy all or part of a course.  To copy part of a course you need to chose the option to select specific content during the import.  In that case the first step of the import will be a request for you to select content, and a checklist of all content will be provided for that purpose.  Outcomes are one of the categories in the checklist.  You can copy the entire category or open it to select only the specific outcome of interest. 

In order to copy the content this way you need to be enrolled as a teacher in the course you are copying from.  In my department we have a course with all faculty that teach the same course enrolled as teachers (and no students).  We each copy content into the shared course whenever we have something to share.  But there are only four of us.

Since it is specifically outcomes that you want to share, the link in my earlier post gives you instructions for transferring the outcomes as a csv file. 

[michael_sholar]

Copy Course doesn't appear to work to retain outcomes alignments (tagged questions) on quizzes. It still fails even when I select the choice to copy everything from the other course.

The outcomes copy over but their alignment to questions is lost... unless it's an 'institutional outcome'... then it will remain tagged.

All of the outcomes that I made myself for my specific course will copy over to the new course, but not remain aligned with the questions on my quiz. So at this point it seems that I need to 're-tag' all questions in the new course.

[MarkHelzer]

Hi Michael,

I have the same issue. When I copy my quiz and outsomes into a new course the alignment of the outcome to the quiz do not transfer. I believe this is because each outcome has a designated course ID associated with it, which does not transfer when you put it into a new (different) course. I have no idea how to fix this. Who love to get a solution for this. 

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi @MarkHelzer and @michael_sholar ,

Quiz Outcomes are unable to be copied to other courses. This is because each individual course has their own outcomes based off of student mastery within that course only, meaning those outcomes from that one course cannot be duplicated over to another course. This however may be able to be changed based off of how your school has Canvas set-up and developed. However, I think generally it's not able to be copied.

You can view more information regarding Outcomes here in this guide: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/What-are-Outcomes/ta-p/75\.

Hope this helps you out!

Noah B.

[myearling]

Hello, 

How can we elevate this issue? Using quizzes with linked outcomes tells me who's learning what, when. That should be able to be copied to the same course in a different shell. It took me 4 hours to add the outcomes to the unit 1 practice quizzes in all my course shells for the same class. Without the outcomes though, all I see is a grade, not student performance on outcomes. In other words, I have no assessment data, just grades. So I can see that two students score 70% but I don't know who's mastered what and where they are struggling. Even my third grade kid's testing platforms (three in total) are assessment-based data. The focus of Canvas on grades alone is very dated. 

Thanks for the consideration. 

Marie

[JOANNORDILLE]

If I understand correctly, this is horrible.  I have hundreds of questions for my course which I teach in multiple sections each term.  Why can't I reuse the outcomes without the arduous task of labeling each question in the item banks with the outcome? I could also find no way to say that all the questions in the item bank had the same outcome.  So last night, I spent 4 hours labeling questions in item banks for a quiz that was occurring in 3 sections.  My reward?  Only a report for the one section where I created the outcomes.  This is a horrendous amount work when you teach hundreds of students the same course material (in multiple sections) each term!  Why am I even bothering?  I need some way to get the question scores out of Canvas by category to generate my accreditation report.  I have been doing this report manually for years.  It takes weeks of my time each year, and I though naively that these outcomes would help me with that. So completely disappointed.

[MarkHelzer]

My biggest complaint about this is if I create a quiz in a "dev" course and I also tag those questions with an outcome in the DEV course when I copy everything over to my active course, I feel the outcomes should stay aligned with the question/quiz. I don't want to have to realign every question with an outcome every time I copy that quiz into a new course. I really want to know if CANVAS is aware of this issue/concern and are going to fix it. 

[NoahBoswell]

Hi, @MarkHelzer...
I recommend that you leave this under canvas ideas for the canvas team to look at, and to possibly implement in a future canvas update.

You can click the link below, then click Submit a Idea and go from there!

Reach out with any questions, thanks!

CLICK HERE!! 

[MarkHelzer]

Thank you for letting me know about the Canvas idea section. I am new to this whole thing and was unaware of this option. Thank you for your input. 

Mark

[NoahBoswell]

Absolutely, Mark!

[myearling]

I see you posted this in ideas and that it's still listed as new a year later. I agree that Canvas's focus on grades not outcomes assessment is very dated. Any updates or work-around you found besides manually entering every time for every quiz?

[MarkHelzer]

Canvas still doesn't want to address allowing class-made outcomes to be transferred into a different shell. The only way to copy outcomes and keep all the tags working is to get with your administrator and create institutional outcomes. Once you create outcomes on an institutional level, you can copy those outcomes into the course and tag the questions. These tags will then carry over when you copy the quiz into another course. You also need to upload the institutional outcomes into the course, which is very easy. 

[myearling]

Thanks for the speedy reply! Unfortunately, this isn't the news I was hoping for. If I were to use institutional outcomes, is there a way to limit their visibility to specific course shells?

[MarkHelzer]

You can have your admin create folders within the institutional outcomes folder and only import the folder containing the outcomes you want into the course shell. I hope that answers your question. 

[myearling]

yes, thank you!