Archive old canvas courses

[IlariaHenein]

Hello,

I'm an admin and wondering if there is a solution for archiving old courses. In our district we have courses from 2017 so our list is very long. I’m aware of the new K16 archiving solution but was wondering if it is possible to do it outside of that vendor or is there a different vendor? Or different process we can follow?

Thank you,

[JamesSekcienski · Accepted solution]

@IlariaHenein 

When you say archive, what would you like to have happen with the courses?

We haven't started archiving yet, but we are beginning to discuss what we plan to do.  So far as an initial step, we have set-up additional sub-accounts that will serve as as a first step to our archiving, but we haven't moved any courses to them yet.  This should help make it easier to run account reports on active courses and ignoring archived courses.  It will also allow us to set-up different permissions for archived courses compared to active courses.

You may also be interested in the process shared by @lmsstaff on the script they use at their school for archiving courses: How to Archive Courses via Python 

[JimFoscue]

We are also needing to archive a lot of courses.  But the question what does archiving mean?  If you move the courses to different accounts that doesn't clear up any space that those courses are using.  We are trying to clean up space that our old courses are using.  So archiving courses would mean making a backup of them along with all the files that go with them to an external drive and then removing them from Canvas completely.

Has anyone done this before?

Thanks!

[IlariaHenein]

Thanks for your response! I’m looking for the same thing—an archiving solution that allows us to remove old courses from Canvas while keeping backups of everything, including files. So far, I haven’t found a solution outside of K16. Have you come across any reliable process or vendor for this? If anyone else has successfully done this, I’d love to hear how.

[JimFoscue]

Are you using the open-source version of Canvas from github?  If so, what version?  

Also are you supporting a group of students in production mode?  Or just trying it out?  

The reason I ask is we are hosting the open source version for a large university with several thousand students and I'm looking for organizations that are doing the same thing to exchange experiences with.

Thanks for your help!

[IlariaHenein]

We’re using Instructure’s hosted version of Canvas, not the open-source version from GitHub. Our instance is running in a live production environment for our district, supporting active courses and students. I’d be happy to exchange insights on archiving and storage, but we’re not managing a self-hosted setup.

[JimFoscue]

Ok.  Are you using the K16 solution for archiving or something else?

[IlariaHenein]

We are not using K16 at this time. We’re currently exploring different options for archiving and removing older courses from Canvas to free up space. Are you using K16, or have you implemented a different solution?

[JimFoscue]

No we do not have a solution either.  Sounds like we are trying to accomplish the same thing as you are.  Please let me know what solution you find.  I will do the same for you.

Thanks

[MichelleBarber]

I am assuming no one has found a solution?

[notmichaeljfox]

We need to archive specific content to meet Government regulations, so we've been using Robotic Process Automation to download and convert content to PDFs. Because we are grabbing specific content, there is a human-assisted element (no one names their content 100% consistently to allow full automation), but if you wanted to grab everything, you could set it up on a computer and let it run.

We're using Power Automate, with PowerShell scripts to more efficiently search, download and convert content.