How can I delete all Discussions from last year's course?

[MarthaFarah]

This year's Canvas site was carried over from last year's, and it has a large number of Discussion items that I need to delete. I can only see a way to do this is one at a time, which will be time consuming.  How can I delete all with one action?

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @MarthaFarah,

It sounds like you're trying to use the cans Canvas course shell from last year for a new course this year, is that correct?  I will say that in most situations, this is not advisable. You'll more than likely want to create a new course for this year (your school may already do this for you) and import the content (which would not include student submissions/discussions) into the new course.  If you *must* use the old course for some reason, it may be easier to duplicate the each discussion, then delete the originals, which would take all of the student replies with it.

Hope this helps a bit!

-Chris

[SusanNiemeyer]

@chriscas - It hadn't occurred to me that @MarthaFarah might be trying to keep using an old Canvas course. I agree that doing so is a bad idea.

@MarthaFarah  - If you are, in fact, keeping alive an old course shell and just adding new students, stop! Just create a new course shell. Then you are going to choose the option to "import selected content." Then you can choose which content you want to include in your new course shell. Also, when you go this route, it's really import to "remove" the old assignment dates. 

I hope that you come back and explain a bit more about your situation.