Copy an Assignment

[costarec]

I'm putting this in here yet again for the following reasons:

Common to most Windows desktop software is an Edit menu with capability to complete basic edit features: Cut-Copy-Paste. These are almost universally repeated with keyboard and mouse replication.

Many users would want to enter the basic settings for an assignment and then repeat them such as 10 status reports due, one each week, 5 programs due, 1 every two weeks, chapter quizzes one each chapter, etc. Once the basic assignment was setup and copied then specific changes could be applied with the assurance that the basic specifics of the assignment, such as security, availability, etc, are all uniform.

It is important to the professionalism of the class presentation that the specific particulars of those items be identical, and the actions involved in checking and double checking back and forth to make sure that all the details desired to be the same are in fact the same is an an unreasonable amount of work when using a machine which was developed because of its ability to repeat operations predictably and correctly.

I think that the other items along these lines that have been ignored or gathered under "Commons" is really ignoring a basic capability of almost any productivity application that a good design would include.

[James]

While I agree that the ability to copy assignments would be useful, I don't understand the purpose of the reference to Windows desktop software. Canvas is not a desktop software application, it runs within the browser, which already has it's own edit menu and copy/cut/paste functionality. Anything that Canvas did would have to co-exist with those, which means that they shouldn't repurpose that functionality.

Are you saying that we should be able to copy/cut/paste assignments? I've never encountered this idea before so I'm having trouble grasping how that would work. I can see having a hotspot (similar to the handle where you can drag) where a person would click to copy an assignment to the clipboard but I don't know where they would paste it to make a copy. Ideally, I would want it to paste where the mouse was, but that would only make sense if I was in a list of assignments. Is this approach accessible? Does it work with all of the Canvas-supported browsers?

I've looked at copying things before and determined that it's not as easy as it looks as it can take some time to duplicate information and there was the problem of telling which version I was editing since they both had identical information. I would have wanted it to add a sequential number to the end of each copy so I could tell it apart. Ultimately, I gave up on it. But I've never considered this option of ctrl-c/ctrl-v and you've put a lot more thought into it than I have. How do you envision this working?

There are other possibilities that come to mind when I read the feature request, but you start off with and end with the notion of an desktop application rather than a page within a browser, so it seemed you really wanted the universal copy/paste commands.

Here are some of the other questions that came to mind:

Are you just saying that there should be the ability to duplicate assignments within Canvas without having to resort to Commons?

Are you asking for a full-fledged table-like layout for editing assignments? There could be a checkbox next to each assignment and then an "bulk action" section where the user could choose to delete, copy, publish, unpublish, shift the dates, etc, and apply it to all of the checked assignments.

Are you asking for a menu item added to the admin cog for each assignment that says "Duplicate this assignment" and when you choose it, it asks "How many times?"

Or are you asking for something else completely different?

[jcottin]

Regarding questions to keep in mind: I would vote for the last two!@

Having the ability to duplicate (copy) assignments within a course would be wonderful, especially when an instructor assigns certain assignments in multiple weeks. The description may change slightly but the rubric, points, etc remain the same. Having the ability to generate multiple copies even better!!!

Having the ability to have a bulk action spreadsheet would also be amazing, especially useful for dates (due, available, until), publish, unpublish, points, etc. would make life much easier especially when rolling over a semester.

[Chris_Hofer]

I had some of the same questions as you did,  @James ​.  So, I am also wondering how this would work based on Charles' Feature Idea request.

There have been a couple Feature Ideas already submitted that have sparked a lot of votes and conversation.  I'll provide the links here:

(now archived, but 470 votes and a response from Instructure)

" modifiedtitle="true" title="FAST & EASY Way to Copy Content on the FLY (currently at 139 votes and in the "Gathering Info" stage)

[Renee_Carney]

 @costarec ​

Thank you for your submission.  We agree that the ability to copy something is an expected behavior in most software now.  The ability to copy content does exist in Canvas, but not in the exact process that you describe.  Chris is correct in referring you to existing feature ideas that are similar to your.  I would add " modifiedtitle="true" title="Recurring Assignments​,   and suggest looking through Copy Anything in Canvas (Redux)​.

All of the ideas we linked to, with the exception of ​, are archived, but they are not dead!  We keep close tabs on these ideas.  Please add your comments to the ideas that make the most sense to you for your use cases. 

You may also want to explore How do I import content from another Canvas course?​, and using Canvas Commons​ for making duplications of a single content item.

I am going to archive this thread, to reduce duplication.

[Renee_Carney]

Thank you for your idea submission.

Honoring our commitment to not delete Community content, your idea has made the journey to Cold Storage  because it is either a duplicate, possibly off topic, or may now be obsolete.  We have moved it from the general Community to keep the Community search results precise and uncluttered.

If you are one that likes the additional chaos of more abundant search results, you can elect to join Cold Storage  in order to see ALL the idea submissions.

[Renee_Carney]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas 

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-07-15)