Copy content into multiple courses at once

[seth]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

  Idea will be open for vote May 5th, 2015 - August 5th, 2015  Learn more about voting...

As an instructor, I'd like to copy content from a single course to multiple other courses at one time. I'd like to be able to go to the course in which the content now resides, select items to copy, and then select one or multiple courses into which to copy the content. This would help me at the beginning of terms as, for instance, I copy content from a "master" course where I've developed my content into multiple Canvas courses, because my institution places each section of a given academic course into separate Canvas courses.

transferred from the old Community

Originally posted by: Chris Long

Special thanks for contributions from: Kat Mulvey, Sandy McArthur, Barb Miltner, Betsy Walker

  Comments from Instructure

May 2016 Update

From Kate McGee, Commons Product Manager

I'm excited to announce as of last week, we’ve updated the functionality in Commons to allow users to import content into multiple courses at once.

Here is how it's done:

• Share the course you want to copy to Commons (publicly, institutionally, or privately)
• You should be able to select any/all of the courses by check-marking the course(s) to which you want to import.
• On the resource detail page, Click "Import into Course"

More details in this guide: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2005

This was a request from the community. Your feedback is essential to our product's continued improvement. Thank you so much to all of you!

Preview of User Interface:

November 2015 update

I may be biased, but I'm pretty sure we have the most amazing Community of users ever!  We appreciate all of the energy and effort that everyone of you put into a feature idea, and we appreciate even more when you keep returning to tell us how to make it better.

When Commons was released we knew that it would be a possible solution for some users, but we also acknowledge that it is not the ideal user experience for many.  For this very reason, we would like to revert this idea from complete and mark it as "under consideration" while we work toward a better option!  Please follow and bookmark this idea to receive updates as they are available!

For more information on the feature idea stages please reference How does the voting process work for feature ideas?

July response from Kate McGee

Greetings All!

Commons is now available and provides the ability to import content into more than one course from a simple Commons import menu.

Here is how it's done:

• Share the course you want to copy to Commons (publicly, institutionally, or privately)
• On the resource detail page, Click "Import into Course"
• Select your course from the dropdown
• Repeat the "Import into Course" for each course you want to content copied into

Note: that you won't be able to copy multiple versions of a resource into one course without replacing the initial resource, at least not yet

Chris Long because you were the original poster in the old community, will you give this a try and let us know if it meets your needs!?

[kbeimfohr]

Our teachers have been asking for this feature since we began using Canvas.  It would be nice to create an announcement and then have check boxes asking which courses would you like this announcement to be posted.  This would be the same for quizzes, files, etc.  Great suggestion Deactivated user !

[clong]

This would be a huge time saver for teachers!

[mlattke]

Our bricks and mortar teachers ask for this all the time.  Let's say they teach US History to 5 different periods.  If they made their course all at once, it would be an easy course import, but they usually add assignments on the fly and would like to easily be able to copy them to all their other courses that have the same content without having to go to each course to import it.

[clong]

Yes, face-to-face classes do not have their whole course designed upfront in Canvas. It is a couple weeks at a time and on the fly.  @mlattke ​ gives one example, but I know someone will ask why doesn't that US History teacher's course utilize sections then this need would be alleviated, right? Perhaps, but there are reasons they have set it up that way. Perhaps so they can have unique grading scales per class or it's easier to setup discussions with just one section in them.

Anyways, what I also see a lot are Teachers who teach different course that often time have similar content and assignments. So I teach Biology and Accelerated Biology and there and I just created an assignment that I want to use in both of those classes, get ready to import content with a lot of screens and clicks. The ability to send it to another course at the time of creation would be so much more efficient.

[mlattke]

Agreed!  And yes, the reason many of those courses are setup as separate courses and not sections are because of how they are setup in the SIS.  The courses are imported, and if the school has a reason why they can't be coded as sections, then we can't switch it.

[scottdennis]

Just FYI; I learned today that the full production target release date for Commons is August 3rd.

[Lawrence_wirth]

This is a feature that would be a very valuable time saver, as many have noted over the past several years on the old Community.  I have up to 3 copies of the same file on 3 different course pages because I teach 3 different levels of a physics course.  Is "Commons" the fix for this issue?

[scottdennis]

Update on the FYI....  As of today, any institution may have Commons turned on.

[kristin_bayless]

This would solve so many issues.  The feature would also need the option to update the selected course copies when the source content is revised/updated. If something can be done about access to linked content for students not enrolled in the source class, it would help our teachers, who don't totally understand why they can see the content but not their students.

[bjholt]

Would be a great addition for us to provide a template/scaffold for faculty to start their class build.