How do you detect unused files and content items (pages, assignments etc)

[DavidSalzman]

I want to clean up my files. How can I detect unused items?

[KarlijnvanA · Accepted solution]

Hi @DavidSalzman 

With files, I don't really know how you can see what is used within the course, so maybe someone else can help with that one.

Assigments is by far the easiest one: you go to "assignments" within your course and if beneath the title of the assigment, you see the name of 1 or more modules in subscript, that means the assignment is linked to a module. 

Pages is a little more complicated, but I use a 'hack': I de-publish all pages under 'pages' within the course. Then I go back to modules, publish all content. Then I go back to pages and all pages that are not published are not part of a module. Beware!!!! When you have a page that is not part of a module, but for instance linked to from another page or assigment, that will be deleted by this method aswel! So, not always the best way to do this.

Hope this helps and is part of the answers you are looking for.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi there, @DavidSalzman ...

In addition to the information that you've gotten from @Sandie and @KarlijnvanA, I wanted to mention there is a paid add-on from Cidi Labs called TidyUP that integrates with Canvas.  At the previous College where I worked, we had TidyUP, and it helped with file and page clean-up quite a bit...though I don't know how many of our instructors actually used it (I know I did during course builds).  If you would like to learn more about TidyUP, please check out this link:

TidyUP for Canvas File and Page Cleanup | Cidi Labs

This would need to be installed by your Canvas administrator because it would be a tool available for all courses at your school...not just your own course(s).  Talk with your school's Canvas admin about potentially purchasing this product from Cidi Labs if this is of interest.

Take care...be well.

[KarlijnvanA · Accepted solution]

Hi @DavidSalzman 

With files, I don't really know how you can see what is used within the course, so maybe someone else can help with that one.

Assigments is by far the easiest one: you go to "assignments" within your course and if beneath the title of the assigment, you see the name of 1 or more modules in subscript, that means the assignment is linked to a module. 

Pages is a little more complicated, but I use a 'hack': I de-publish all pages under 'pages' within the course. Then I go back to modules, publish all content. Then I go back to pages and all pages that are not published are not part of a module. Beware!!!! When you have a page that is not part of a module, but for instance linked to from another page or assigment, that will be deleted by this method aswel! So, not always the best way to do this.

Hope this helps and is part of the answers you are looking for.

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

HI @KarlijnvanA lots of useful suggestions above.

I would recommend using the New Analytics function to see what students are accessing (ie is published, available, and getting noticed).

There are two ways to get a list of files from a specific course

1) if you have the Ally accessibility tool linked, the sub account level function allows all assets to be listed (with their accessibility scores.

2) as an alternative there is an api call that you can run from the browser

https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/files.html#method.files.api_index

This offers this api call which you can make from the browser

https://YOURCANVASADDRESS/api/v1/courses/YOUR COURSEID/files

When you run this it will look like a foreign language, so you would then need to find an online JSON converter to drop it into Excel

Hopefully someone else may have a simpler solution for you 🙂

[paul_fynn]

Just to add that a recent change we implemented in my home institution was to remove the ability of colleagues to roll over individual files and pages as part of module import. This has substantially reduced housekeeping needs as unused content is dropped in copy over./import.

All pages, files, and content attached as part of individual module blocks will still be pulled, and other functions are available to allow missed items to be pulled across (eg using "Copy To"

[Sandie]

Hi @DavidSalzman

As an admin myself I would always recommend lecturers clean up any unused files etc., so they won't go over the storage limits.

In any course you can click on the files/pages etc. from the navigation bar on the left-hand side.

For pages click on "Pages" then view all pages, you can delete whatever you don't want to keep by click on the three dots next to the page.

By click on "Assignments" it will bring you direct to the assignment area and again click on the three dots next to the assignment to delete (be careful when you do this, always make sure there are not students' submissions beforehand otherwise it will all be gone)

For files you should see your course files when click "Files" and just do the same as pages to delete. There is an option for you to see all your files when you scroll to the bottom of the page. When you click on all my file at the bottom, It will list all of your files from different courses. I will not suggest you delete from there as it may confuse you and deleted the wrong files. Here is the link to show you how to delete file How do I delete a file or folder in Files? - Instructure Community - 617196

Hope this helps.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi there, @DavidSalzman ...

In addition to the information that you've gotten from @Sandie and @KarlijnvanA, I wanted to mention there is a paid add-on from Cidi Labs called TidyUP that integrates with Canvas.  At the previous College where I worked, we had TidyUP, and it helped with file and page clean-up quite a bit...though I don't know how many of our instructors actually used it (I know I did during course builds).  If you would like to learn more about TidyUP, please check out this link:

TidyUP for Canvas File and Page Cleanup | Cidi Labs

This would need to be installed by your Canvas administrator because it would be a tool available for all courses at your school...not just your own course(s).  Talk with your school's Canvas admin about potentially purchasing this product from Cidi Labs if this is of interest.

Take care...be well.

[dbrace]

My institution does not subscribe to Cidi Labs products (we are thinking about it) and TidyUp is what I was going to recommend.

-Doug