Discussion Posts from Last Year, Showing Up This Year

[OmarKhater]

Hello I am a supervisor of student staff at a university. Using Canvas as a platform for training student staff. Last year, we didn't put the students into Sections because we were unaware of them existing. Now that we are in a new year, the students can see the posts from last year on the discussion boards. Is there any way for us to hide the discussion post contributions without deleting them individually? We would like to basically start fresh each year without having to create a Canvas course each time.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@OmarKhater ...

It sounds like you may be re-using a Canvas course over multiple terms/semesters.  However, using a new Canvas course shell is really the way to go here.  This is how most schools set things up...so that they do not run into situations like you describe.  While it might not be the most ideal, I would highly suggest you re-visit the idea of using a new course shell for each term/semester/year that you offer the course.  This way, you can keep any discussions, assignment submissions, etc. separate per course, and you can simply import/copy course content from one course to another using the Course Import Tool.

How do I copy content from another Canvas course using the Course Import tool?

[SusanNiemeyer]

I completely agree. Each term, create a new course shell. It just takes a couple of minutes to import the previous course content into the new course shell. Then enroll the new students in the new course shell, and you will have no issues. This is a much easier and much better approach than using the same course shell term after term. You're just creating a headache for yourself.