Duplicate, Clone, or Copy anything in Canvas

[jthoms]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

An option to "make a copy" should be present on nearly every gear in Canvas -- modules, quizzes, assignments, announcements, pages, discussions, rubrics...

Consistency is an important element of good course design, and this would help instructors and designers achieve it more easily.

Ideas related to this have been developed and depoyed

This idea was completed through the Khaki 2017: Priorities & Related Ideas. 

Here are the content items that were completed as part of Khaki

- Module Item Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-11-18) 

- Module Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2018-06-23) 

- Assignment Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-07-15) 

- Discussion Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-10-28) 

- Page Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-07-15) 

You can read more about Khaki in What in the world does “Khaki” have to do with Canvas?‌

*We know that the ability to copy a rubric from the rubric manager does not currently exist, but we have elected to mark this idea as complete anyways.  If copying a rubric is something that you think should be developed, please add your comment and vote to https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/5167" modifiedtitle="true" title="Copy a rubric.

[travis_thurston]

This is a fantastic suggestion!

[jordan]

I completely agree  @jthoms !

I would also suggest that content should not only be available to clone or copy, but also that the creator should be able to specify a QUANTITY for the content being copied.

From the perspective of an instructor and course designer who has designed many courses in Canvas and helped hundreds of others develop courses, I find that Teachers often have assignments (sample) discussions (sample) and especially pages (sample 1 - sample 2 - sample 3) that have a certain format and they want all of these similar items in their course to be consistent and match that format. Often times they will know that they need 5, 10, 20, or even 30 of those same items. Cloning would allow them to copy that format and they should be able to do so by a quantity they specify.

Picture this scenario: Lets say that a teacher or instructional designer wants to create a quick skeleton/frame up of their course.  They know that they are going to give 14 Weekly Overview pages, 10 Lab assignments, 6 papers submitted as assignments, 10 quizzes, and 14 weekly discussions. With a cloning option, coupled with a quantity option, they could create just 2 assignments (one for lab and one for paper), 1 discussion, 1 quiz, and 1 page template in their course. Then they could use the "clone" option and choose how many times they want to clone each item. Or, even better, imagine if they could add each of these content items into a module for "Week 1" then copy or clone that module 14 times, and all of the content would copy as well.

Another consideration is that you would probably want each content item to be the same name as the original content item with a number after it, increased by an increment of 1. So in the example above Week 1 module should create 13 other modules... week 2... week 3... week 4... etc. And the content items within could work the same way... Lab 1 (the original), then after the clone you would have Lab 2... Lab 3... Lab 4... etc.

[travis_thurston]

Excellent points, Deactivated userThis is currently achievable using kennethware​ and the Template Wizard: Template Wizard: CIDI Custom Tools​

I use this feature when creating courses at USU. It absolutely simplifies creating a quick skeleton frame for a class. There is a similar idea on this vein posted by the Community Team:  ​.

[jthoms]

Great to know -- thanks,  @travis_thurston ​! Hopefully that proves the concept well enough to prove the need to bake it into Canvas.

[leward]

Ditto.  The absence of a copy or duplicate function was something we noted during our evaluation of Canvas.  Reducing repetitive tasks with simple features like copy makes for happy faculty!

[carol_walsh]

I agree. Thanks to all. We use a templated approach to ensure course consistency across our institution and being able to copy pages would save everyone a lot of time and reduce repetitive copying of pages.

[James_Kocher_UF]

This IS possible now, with the following work around I just posted 

Copying items in a course​

James

[travis_thurston]

Hey  @James_Kocher_UF ​, John​ & Deactivated user​!

I made a gif to show how I copy pages in my courses using kennethware. The functionality of the "copy existing" allows me to copy from pages within the same course automatically, or as I model in this gif, to paste a url of a page from another course and it will copy the content. You may need to click on the image below to launch the animated gif.

*Note: it does not copy files that are embedded in the page, but it will copy all code (embedded youtube videos, section headings, etc). Files (pictures or pdf's) have to be uploaded to the target course's files and linked appropriately.

[James_Kocher_UF]

We're working on getting custom tools!  by hook (locally) or by crook (unizen)  :smileygrin:

[kate_hill]

This shouldn't even require a vote. Honestly, this is probably one of the HUGE missing pieces in Canvas. I appreciate the workarounds, but hoping this gets pushed through immediately!