Copying items in a course

[James_Kocher_UF]

I WISH I could take credit for discovering this, but my colleague  @sgraff ​ told me about this.

If you want to copy something in your course, assignment, quiz, rubric, etc, there IS a way!

Go to settings>import content>copy canvas course.   Then do a search for the course you are in!  It will give you a warning that importing into the same course will create a copy.  Then pick "selected content" and find what you want to copy. Once it's done, you may have to figure out which is the copied version or which is the original, but for assignments and quizzes, it will be easy since they will be in a category called "imported content."

If you need to make multiple copies, make sure you make a copy of the previously imported item, or it will overwrite the first one!  So for example:

I make a copy of Assignment 1.   Assignment 1 will now show up twice (with the copy being in "Imported Content").  You need to update the name to something original, like...  Assignment 2!!

Now when you go back to import content, make a copy of Assignment 2 and NOT Assignment 1, or else Assignment 2 will be replaced with a new copy of Assignment 1.

It's not perfect, but it WORKS!  And is a great time saver!

James

[tdelillo]

I shared this with an instructor, and he did run into the problem with overwriting. He had edited both the original and the copied quiz, including changing the quiz names. But then he tried to bring in another copy from one of his other course shells, and it overwrote one of the edited versions. Can you clarify how you prevent that? If I understand, the key is to copy the COPY, not to try to copy the original (from the course you're in or from a different course with identical assignments/quizzes).

[James_Kocher_UF]

 @tdelillo 

So to be sure that I'm following what's going on...

The instructor copied a quiz in Course A, edited the copy, then imported another quiz from Course B and it overwrote the edited copy?

[tdelillo]

Yes. Course A and Course B had the same content, more or less. In Course A he used your trick to copy a quiz (lets call it Quiz X) from the same course. Edited both. Then (I don't know why exactly, unless he was just testing things out), he copied Quiz X from Course B into Course A, and Quiz X overwrote one of the edited versions. Reading through your instructions again, it seems to me that the instructor should have just made the first copy, then made another copy of the copy (renaming it after the copy).

[James_Kocher_UF]

yes, you have to copy the copy.  If Course B is a copy of Course A, then Quiz X  from Course B will look like Quiz X from Course A instead of Quiz X-1. (ok, i'm having trouble keeping up with the letters!).   Best thing to do is stay within Course A and copy Quiz X-1 to duplicate. (as you stated above).

[DaleDrees]

Thanks  @James_Kocher_UF  - It works great! Can't believe I never thought of this before!!!

[gdweber]

When I use this method to copy a quiz from a course to the same course, and the quiz has question groups drawn from question banks, I find all the question groups are there, with no questions, no question bank assigned, and apparently no way to edit the question group to assign a question bank to it.  The original quiz has 15 questions, all drawn from question banks.  The copy has 0 questions.

Top of quiz questions in the original quiz:

Top of quiz questions in the quiz copy:

[jen]

Yes, the same thing happened to us with less than comic results. Twice. Still trying to make repairs.

[aheath2]

This is just one reason  why I (an instructor) despise Canvas.  Why is there even a need for a workaround?  There should be an actual "copy" command.  Didn't the people who built this thing think of that???? (Among other basic, obvious tools they left out?)

(Besides, whenever I use this method to copy it does not allow me to import a single document.  I have to import ALL the documents in a category (e.g. all "Quizzes").  This leaves me with dozens of superfluous items to have to scroll past or delete... one.... by... one... by one.  )

[tdelillo]

There have been some recent updates, definitely worth mentioning in this thread - In the July 15, 2017 release, the ability to duplicate assignments and pages was added. For those items, at least, the workarounds are no longer needed! https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-11764-canvas-production-release-notes-2017-07-15 

[kona]

 @aheath2 ‌, in addition to the information Tracey has provided, I’ll also add that if your click the little icon next to the category (ex: quizzes) it will expand it so you can select individual content items from each category. Sorry, off the top of my head I can’t remember what the icon looks like, but I think it’s a plus sign +. **Updated, good thing I checked, it’s actually an arrow icon. See the following guide for more specific directions and the correct icon! - https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-9878-4152497985 

[aheath2]

There is no “Duplicate” option in the settings for individual assignments in whatever version of Canvas it is I am being made to use.

I’ve got “Edit”, “Move To” , “Delete”, and “Move to Commons”. That is all.

Even if there is some way to duplicate individual assignments, it absolutely blows my mind that such a feature was  not present in the very first beta version of this thing.  This is FUNDAMENTAL.