Copying links from one Canvass course to another

[JamesChrystie]

I have recently finished a course with lots of material posted on Canvass, primarily from YouTube. I am now about to repeat the course. Is there an easy way to just transfer the You Tube and website material from the old course to the new ? Or do I have to laboriously find each link and paste it as new ?

[ericwhitmer · Accepted solution]

If you have permissions as an instructor, you should be able to copy the course forward with the links intact. There won't be a need to retrieve a new link unless the original link becomes a dead link.

[ericwhitmer · Accepted solution]

If you have permissions as an instructor, you should be able to copy the course forward with the links intact. There won't be a need to retrieve a new link unless the original link becomes a dead link.

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @JamesChrystie,

From your new course shell, you can follow the How do I copy content from another Canvas course u... - Instructure Community guide, which can get all or select parts of your old course content into your new one.  It should really be a pretty quick and painless process.

-Chris

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @JamesChrystie ...

I've marked the @chriscas' response as a solution because he has provided you a great response!  I'll just add that as you are copying content from one Canvas (just one "s" by the way...not two) to another, you'll want to make sure that you are signed into the course where the content will be copied to...not where the content currently lives.  Sometimes people get confused by that and end up duplicating content into a previous course by mistake.  So, you want to be logged into the course that doesn't have any content in it yet...because you'll be selecting the course that does have content during the import process...as Chris has correctly stated.

Also, if you want to just copy parts of a course and not the whole thing, you can use this Guide:

• How do I select specific content as part of a course import?

And finally, if you needed to just copy one piece of content from one course to another later on, there are ways to do that as well using the "Copy To..." function:

• How do I copy an announcement to another course? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)
• How do I copy an assignment to another course? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)
• How do I copy a discussion to another course? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)
• How do I copy a module to another course? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)
• How do I copy a module item to another course? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)
• How do I copy a page to another course? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)
• How do I copy a quiz to another course? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)
• How do I copy a quiz to another course in New Quiz... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

Hopefully these extra resources will be of help to you if you need them down the road.  For now, I'd suggest you follow the steps that Chris provided.  That should be a great starting point for you.

Let us know if you have any further questions about this.  Take care, and be well!

[soumyasbh]

Actually, none of the links mentioned here shows how to do what OP wants. I want the exact thing. Canvas people told me that you have to import the modules where the links are embedded and that will overwrite your existing content. Apparently, there is NO other way.

Alternatively, one can put all the links in one module ina Sandbox course. Import just that module. Redistribute the links in appropriate modules of the new course.

[Chris_Hofer]

@soumyasbh ...

I'm not exactly sure what you mean.  And, I think we may have to agree to disagree.  In James' defense, we have not heard back from him since he first posted his question on December 8, 2022.  However, I just reviewed the replies from @ericwhitmer and @chriscas, and I agree with their feedback.  I also reviewed the feedback I left that afternoon, and it still applies.  James wanted to copy content from one course to another (the content contained YouTube links website material), and we provided direction for him on how to do that.

Reading through your response, it might help to see an example or two of what your current setup looks like.  Would you be willing to share a screenshot or two showing your course...and what you are trying to accomplish?  I think this would be really helpful so that we can better assist you and maybe streamline your process to copy content from one course to another.

Looking forward to hearing back from you soon!

[soumyasbh]

when I tried importing youtube links, they did not simply import - I don't have a screenshot of that

I contacted Faculty help through Canvas - their suggestion was:

create a module in your sandbox

add all the links you want

import the module

redistribute the links where you want them to be

their opinion was: links cannot be imported as is

[Chris_Hofer]

@soumyasbh ...

How are you adding links to a module in your course?  I could be wrong about this, but when you are on your "Modules" page of your course, are you clicking on the "+" sign to the right of a module name and then selecting the "External URL" option from the drop-down list to add a YouTube link as a module item?  Or, are you selecting "External Tool' and then possibly selecting "YouTube" as your external tool to add a YouTube video?  Some other process entirely?  Without seeing a visual from you, I'm trying to take a guess at how you are doing this, but I'm not sure if I'm interpreting your steps correctly.  When you say "add all the links you want", what does your process look like to do that?