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.

[BethCrook]

Sorry David, but I'm with the others on this one.    While this might be a big feature/need that hasn't been fully addressed, I've never met a company who listens to their customers and users better than Instructure!

[SethBattis]

Amen. I like the way Commons encourages sharing of best practices both intra- and extramurally. But it doesn't meet the need of "I'd really like to just iterate that particular assignment again"

[jordan]

Hey  @PSU_Tony ​!

fwiw, you may want to check out what Cidilabs is doing... Cidi Labs | Instructional Design Tools for Canvas

(Essentially Cidi Labs is bringing a fully supported installment of "Kennethware" to market!  Of course there would be costs associated, but you no longer have to enable it (for free) and try to support it all on your own, which is the struggle that most institutions have had in the past.)

I'm still dreaming of a day when we can duplicate (virtually) anything in Canvas. I recently purchased a tool for my mac called Copied​, which keeps a history of all the "CMD+C" things that you copy to your clipboard. Within the first two days I had copied content to my clipboard over 1,000 times! Can you imagine using a computer without the Copy+Paste function? I would submit that this is likely the most valuable of all tools that computers afford us! It saves a user so much time, no matter how they use a computer... especially creators.

Can you imagine software developers (people who create software) having to do their jobs of building/creating without copy+paste? Can you imagine these software engineers having to write every single line of code from scratch, every time they sat down at a computer? The software industry would not be where it is today without Copy+paste, I can guarantee you that!

I guess, from my experience in building courses, I look at Instructional Designers or teachers who build courses in Canvas just the same way. They are (course) developers. They are course builders and creators. They, like software engineers, are building something from scratch (in most cases). When building anything from scratch, on a computer - software, courses, etc. - the amount of value and time saved by having a copy+paste functionality is incalculable.

I'm sure it would not be an easy thing to add to Canvas, but knowing - from my own experience - how much time it would save someone and even the confidence booster (and increase of adoption) it would provide for teachers new to online learning, I will keep hoping that one day Canvas will have this feature applied throughout the product.

[kmeeusen]

Well stated Jordan, and I have to agree with you.

I am a terrible typist, I am a coding hack (and I don't mean a hack coder), I reuse elements all the time; and if I had to accomplish my work without copy/paste, I would have been fired years ago.

Of course I can still use copy/paste in Canvas, just not to the extent I need to really up my productivity. The ability to copy entire content elements in Canvas and reuse them as needed would be incredible. This is why so many content building applications like Articulate, Camtasia and SoftChalk are so popular with Instructional designers - they allow for the reuse of content and elements. Embedding the output of these products into Canvas is relatively easy, but comes with trade-offs. I would love this to be native functionality in Canvas.

KLM

[jthoms]

Thanks for the pointer to Cidi Labs, Deactivated user​! It sounds from a recent post like we may be seeing some improvement... someday.

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/2162#comment-43823 by Deactivated user​

"...as we are rebuilding Quizzes, you'll be excited to hear that we are building duplication functionality into the authoring process from the ground up. I believe that what is needed here is not a workaround or a surface extension of current functionality, but a rethinking of how modules are authored in Canvas to include: 1. the ability to set defaults for all modules created in a course, 2. the ability to duplicate modules and all the objects inside with suffixes the author can control (i.e. "-week 2"), and 3. the ability to leverage template pages and/or content throughout the course. All three of these features would support a much more efficient authoring workflow. [but] Modules will not be a focus for us in the next six months..."

Sounds SO promising!

[cgottlieb]

Yes being able to duplicate a question inside a quiz so I could make minor edits to create a new question is needed.  This was an option in Moodle.  As I am in the process of transferring from Moodle to Canvas, I keep on discovering how limited Canvas is in many areas.  In a nutshell too many things can only be done at the Module level not the file or quiz level.

[Renee_Carney]

Hi  @cgottlieb ​

This is a great thread, however it is too broad for our product team to keep a close eye on! 

Here is a related thread that our product manager keeps an eye on - " modifiedtitle="true" title="Duplicate Quizzes.​  You will also want to follow Canvas Studio: Modern Quizzing Engine​, which is a current project.

I found two idea threads that were submitted previously, but archived due to low votes. 

Usually I would encourage you to resubmit this as a new idea, however, with the ongoing Modern Quizzing Engine I don't think it is necessary! 

[joseph_allen]

@ Renee Carney,  what people voted on in this thread, and what people are really looking for, is a copy button that copies anything in Canvas, not just quiz questions.  People need to copy pages, modules, assignments.... the whole ball of wax.  That creates efficiency for teachers and developers.  Many have explained how to do that with Commons, but that is just too cumbersome.  What the Canvas product needs is a basic, works with every type of object, copy button.

[Renee_Carney]

Thank you,  @joseph_allen .  I agree, and our product team has heard that!  However, when it comes to voting on and tracking the progress of a copy feature in the many facets of Canvas, we have to divide that out.  There is a great conversation in Copy Anything in Canvas (Redux)​ that you might want to check out!

[ccarriga]

I'm fairly new to Canvas.  I'm shocked that the simple ability to make multiple copies of items easily is not already part of the system.  To me, this is a glaring hole.  The Commons is only somewhat useful for this because it only allows one to import an object (such as a quiz) once; if you import it a second time it will overwrite any changes you made to the first one rather than importing a second copy.  This issue needs to be addressed as quickly as possible.