Archiving Old Cohorts/Modules - Admin

[Abztagailz36]

Hi All,

I am wanting to find out whether there is an option to archive older cohorts and modules. 

There is a huge pile of older courses that are no longer in use and we do not want to delete them. I have tried finding information on how I can archive these so that when we search for a specific course, we don't get pages of the same/similar results coming up, which can be confusing and lead to the wrong content being used by instructors.  

Has anyone had success in doing this? 

Many thanks 🙂

[langlangcat]

I would just save the old course and modules as commons. it will archive it and you can import them back to your course when you need them.

If you want to archive a whole course, click on settings and on the top right, choose share to commons. if it is a module, in your module view, click the kabab menu and choose share to commons.

[ColtonSwapp]

Hello @Abztagailz36 

Thanks for posting this in the Canvas community! 

I understand you looking for feedback on how institutions archive old courses. 

There are many ways that institutions tend handle this. Each of them are different and there is not a definitive answer to how to correctly do this.

• Typically archiving is just done with term dates and enrollment statuses. For Example: a course that is associated with a term date will automatically end/conclude when the term date specified is reached. This will put the course into a read only state and prevent users from interacting within the course. 
• Many institutions will allow the instructors to use Commons to back up their content for later use when they get a new course shell and need to import their existing content. 
• Your institution should have a CSM that can go over different options you have for archiving the older courses and cleaning up your account so that you don't have pages and pages of courses showing when you try to search for them. 

Hopefully this helps a little! 

-Colton 

[JasonSimmons]

Hello Abztagailz36,

Instructure rolled out a new offering last year - Canvas Archiving (link below). Institutions are able to archive course content and student data, allowing them to back up their courses, reduce clutter, and secure sensitive student data.  Institutions can also access and retrieve content at any time. Thanks.

https://www.instructure.com/services/canvas-archiving

Best,

Jason