Copy Assignment

[ShawnJensen]

Hello-

I have copied an assignment to each module but when I try to update the name of the assignment, it changes all the assignments that were copied.

[SusanNiemeyer]

Here's the situation. Each individual assignment must have a distinct name.

Therefore, let's say that your students will complete a journal assignment each week. Then if there are 15 weeks in the semester, you need to create 15 different assignments. Each one must have a different name: Week 1 Journal, Week 2 Journal, Week 3 Journal, and so on..... 

When I set up a course like this, I will use the "duplicate" function to create these assignments as I don't want to type out the instructions 15 times. That being said, I still must fix the names. 

[Chris_Hofer]

@SusanNiemeyer ...

Just a quick note of clarification...  technically, assignment names can be identical ... as in this example from my own sandbox course:

I duplicated the top "Bacon Ipsum" assignment, and it created a copy called "Bacon Ipsum Copy 2".  Then, I removed the "Copy 2" wording from the second assignment, and Canvas accepts both assignments with the same name.  I can hover over the assignment name text to see the URLs at the bottom of my browser, and each assignment has a unique assignment ID number.  (The "Pages" page of a Canvas course does not allow for duplicate content page names...as it appends a -2, -3, etc. after any duplicate page names.)

I completely agree with you, though, that it is very helpful to have different assignment names in order to help distinguish where assignments should be placed in modules.  Your suggestion of "Week 1 Journal", "Week 2 Journal", etc. is a good one, and I did similar things in my former role as a Canvas administrator when I built courses for instructors, and they had similar assignment names throughout the entire course.

Hope this helps.

[SusanNiemeyer]

Hi @Chris_Hofer  How odd! I wonder why the Canvas Infrastructure team made the decision to allow an instructor to create two different assignments with the same name.  To me, that would be a very bad idea. It would confuse the instructor and especially the students. 

Again, I would strongly recommend that each Assignment have its own distinct name. 

[Chris_Hofer]

@SusanNiemeyer ...  Not really sure why Instructure (not Infrastructure) made that decision.  I spent a few minutes looking to see if I could find any related Feature Ideas here in the Community, but I wasn't coming up with anything that looked relevant.  🙁

[SusanNiemeyer]

Note - It is possible to have one assignment show up in multiple modules. Let's say that I want the students to have access in the "Semester Project" assignment for three weeks. I can simply add "Semester Project" to all three weekly module. In that case, I have just ONE ASSIGNMENT. If I make any change to the assignment in Week 1, the changes will appear in Weeks 2 and 3.