Can't delete assignment from a copied course

[ElizabethR2]

I have been teaching the same semester course for 2 years, 2 classes per year. I have always copied the previous semester's course with assignments at the start of the new semester. I had always unpublished all assignments and when I used the same assignment, I would change the due date and publish when used. Some of those assignments had even been ones where students submitted work in the past semester, but I went about it the same way.....unpublish, change due date and publish when the time came. When I started this semester, I was not able to change assignments due dates to current dates, unpublish them or delete past assignments. This had never been the case. Even worse, the assignments from last semester's class are seem by students as overdue assignments. Is there anything I can do?

[mzimmerman]

The error message is referencing the grading period.  Are you using grading periods in this course?  What are the dates on the grading periods, and do the assignments in question fall within those grading periods?

You can check the grading periods with the instructions at https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-view-grading-periods-in-a-course/ta-p/1... 

[SusanNiemeyer]

I can't speak to the issue with grading periods, but I have a  recommendation about bringing content from the old course into the new course. Rather than "copy" items, I would highly recommend "importing" them. Here's the Canvas guide:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-copy-content-from-another-Canvas-course...

A few important points:

1. Unless you want everything including old Calendar Events and Announcements, always go with "select content." I teach semester-long courses, and I import the Modules and the Syllabus. When you import the Modules, everything in the Modules will automatically come over. 
2. Always, always, always choose the option "adjust events and due dates." Then I highly recommend that you "remove" the dates altogether. You can also "shift" dates, but this has never worked well for me. 

What you're doing now - "copying" the items and changing the dates - is creating a lot of unnecessary work for yourself.

Finally, I always "import" the course content before the new semester starts so that I can unpublish everything before the students have access to my course.

***NOTE TO CANVAS DEVELOPERS****  You would save instructors so much time and energy by automatically making all of the imported items "unpublished." When everything comes over as "published," it's like "death of a 1,000 clicks." it really is.  

***I know that many folks have already proposed this in the Idea Conversations. Maybe it's time to just fix the issue. Just saying. 🤔

[JeffW · Accepted solution]

Hi @ElizabethR2,

Some great information in these replies. It definitely seems that you moved the assignments in to a course that is using a term associated with grading periods. The due dates on those copied assignments placed them in a locked grading period according to the term association. 

The best way to avoid this would be to use the import existing content tool and copy the things you want over. It will give you an option to either remove or shift the dates which will help you avoid those outdated assignments being placed in a locked grading period. 

Some times schools let their teacher reset their courses, some times you have to reach out to your admins. If they have given you permission to reset it, then you can find that on the right side of the course settings page. If you don't see it, then an admin would have to do it for you. Only an admin can change the due date of an assignment in a closed grading period as well. If you don't have that many then an admin could possibly just go in and edit those for you.

Again, here is a guide to using that import existing content tool! https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-copy-content-from-another-Canvas-course...

[justinjoslin]

While I understand that importing assignments instead of copying them will solve this issue, sometimes it is just far easier to copy an assignment that already exists in your course. I do this all the time. However, I just ran into the OP's problem when I wanted to copy an assignment from my fall term to the spring term. I literally want to change one word in the assignment. However, I now have a locked duplicate assignment that I cannot even delete because Canvas copied the due date. This is an asinine feature of copying an assignment within your own course! I can think of 10 ways that Canvas could fix this issue, but I'm willing to bet it will never be addressed given their track record.

[justinjoslin]

This feature is still awful in Canvas. I cannot fathom how copying assignments between terms is so hard. Why? Why would I have to go through the whole process of importing an assignment when there is a duplicate assignment option. Why is it so hard to change the dates from one grading period to the next. Or, even easier, when copying an assignment, don't auto populate the date! Let the user, you know, the one making decisions, actually decide. It's just another example of the lack of awareness Canvas has about how teachers actually use their product.