[Course Import/Export] Do not allow importing a course into itself

[gpillsbury]

The ability to use the Import tool to copy a Canvas course into itself should be disabled.  There is no reasonable use for such a feature, and when instructors mistakenly choose the existing course as one to import, they are then faced with cleaning up the mess of duplicated items.  This also results in unnecessary support calls.

[chriscas]

I wouldn't necessarily say there are *no* legitimate use cases for that functionality (I can think of at least one possibility, even though it wouldn't apply to us either).  I would definitely support some kind of warning or confirmation message alerting the user that they are about to copy a course to itself though.  That would allow the legit cases to still work, while hopefully reducing the accidental cases, though recognizing that some users will not read the message and will just click whatever approval button exists.

-Chris

[gpillsbury]

@chriscas Curious to know what use you have in mind for this feature. A warning is the minimum that’s needed, yes.

[chriscas]

@gpillsbury ,

I have a couple things just off the top of my head...

1 - For selective imports, people can use the tool to create copies of some items which can't be duplicated through other methods.

2 - For an entire course import onto itself, there are some places that re-use the same course shell semester after semester, and just make new sections or keep enrolling people in one rolling section.  In this case, I have heard that it can sometimes be necessary to copy almost the entire course onto itself so duplicate assignments are created, edited, and then assigned to certain sections or students.  I will say that I don't think this is the ideal way to use Canvas, but nevertheless some places have seemingly implemented things in this way.

-Chris