Internal Canvas hyperlinks in New Quiz instructions do not redirect upon course copy

[Draykov]

Presumably due to the LTI tool nature of New Quizzes, when a user inserts a hyperlink in the "Instructions" field using the Virtual Text Editor, if that hyperlink happens to be an internal link to a Canvas page or other area within that course, that URL (which includes the unique Course ID) will not be adjusted when the course is copied/exported/imported.  This will cause permissions errors when users in a copied version of the course attempt to access the hyperlink.

Also of note, the VTE in the New Quiz "Instructions" field does not offer a "Course Link" option. 

Given the expectations brought about by Canvas functionality in other areas when a course gets copied/exported/imported (i.e. given that most internal URLs are adjusted with new course IDs when a course is copied), is this distinction within New Quizzes going to be addressed at some point?  Or should we simply be actively discouraging users from attempting to insert internal Canvas course links via hyperlink in New Quiz instructions?  

Thanks!

[greydon · Accepted solution]

Hello  @Draykov 

Thank you for contacting the Canvas Community. We're sorry to hear you've been experiencing issues with New Quiz hyperlinks. Thank you for explaining your question in detail and you are right - as of now, internal hyperlinks within instructions linking back to the course on a New Quiz would render  errors and broken for  students. Currently, we have a list of features that we are working on but I don't see one specifically for this:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Quizzes-Transition/gh-p/Quizzes-Transition

However, that isn't to say it won't be an improvement in the future as there are many changes and improvements we are  still working on. It being an LTI is causing part  of this issue, but there are also many other instances where teachers embed hyperlinks to internal course links,  files, etc.  that need to be updated after  migrating an entire course. In theory,  it should update but there isa number of  factors (timeline of updating, published items, how it  was added originally, etc) that can cause issues and we encourage teachers to run the link validator after  they copy over  an entire course: 

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-validate-links-in-a-course/ta-p/1001

Whether you should discourage your teachers to not include internal links on NQ instructions is up to you. Right now, they would need to manually go in and update these links via edit  and replace them with whatever current link is in the course so students do not get errors. If that is too much work or the teacher doesn't want to - they can set up an additional "page" for the NQ instructions as well. Hopefully this helps!

[Draykov]

Thanks, @greydon.