Copy assignment, quiz, or page without publishing

[vectorpotential]

I want to take a homework assignment, quiz, or other content from a course I taught in previous semester, copy it into my current semester course, modify it, and then publish it when I'm ready. However, anytime I copy something that had been published in the previous course, it is already shown as published in the current course.

How can I copy something as initially Unpublished, giving me a chance to modify it before everyone can see it?

For instance, if I plan to give a surprise quiz, but I copy it from a previous semester, and it's already Published in the current semester, I think the students can see it. Maybe they even get an announcement that there is a new quiz available. The only way I really know what the students' Canvas experience is like is by asking them.

[bneporadny · Accepted solution]

Hi vectorpotential,

When you copy something from one course to another it keeps the state (published/unpublished) from the courses it's copied from. What you can do is once it is copied into your new course is to immediately unpublish the assignment, quiz or page make the necessary adjustments and then publish it again. 

[vectorpotential]

I am not allowed to unpublish before copying a quiz, because students have already taken that quiz. If I unpublish after copying, then it's not a very good "surprise" quiz, since someone might see it briefly.

[Chris_Hofer]

@vectorpotential …

I do agree with @bneporadny that you could unpublish the copied version of your quiz immediately after it has been duplicated in your course.  I could be wrong, but the odds of a student seeing a briefly published quiz before you unpublish it seem pretty low.

That being said, here’s another thought for you…. Do you have a separate “sandbox” course that only you have access to?  If so, you could copy the quiz from your course to your “sandbox” course.  Then, in the “sandbox” course, just unpublish it and make any other changes you want.  Then, go to your course with students in it, and then import the unpublished quiz from your “sandbox” course into this course.  It should keep the new copy of the quiz unpublished until you want to publish it again.  I realize this is an extra step in the process, but it should work for your needs.

Keep us posted…thanks!

[tbajkiewicz]

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet: When you copy over a published assignment with a past due date into an active course, if you have settings such that late assignments automatically get a certain grade (like zero), Canvas immediately assigns this in the Gradebook. I've had several students email me asking why they suddenly have a zero on an assignment that's not even due yet. (I set all late assignments to zero.)

I'll try the idea of first putting it in my sandbox Canvas, but it sure would be nice if Canvas just copied everything over as unpublished.

[anne_b_gregal]

This is a big concern for me also. I move content over to my current year course one module at a time from an archived course. They come in already published. This has been a problem when I move on to other tasks while canvas is copying the module. I often can't get back to it right away and kids start accessing pages and assignments before I am able to unpublish manually.