Student Repeating a Course

[JillStiles]

I am the instructor, and I have a student repeating my course.  But all of his previously submitted work (from 2 years ago) is showing up in my grade book and speedgrader.  How can I delete his previous submissions?

[Hildi_Pardo]

Hi @JillStiles -- so your course gets re-used year to year?   We actually have new courses every year -- this helps us keep a record of each year.    Do you usually remove users each year?   Is it possible to end the old course and start a new one fresh?  I think this would give you more control of various scenarios.

I don't think there is a way to delete his previous submissions.  Every work around I am trying to think of is so complicated and having a new course seems much easier.     Ugh, I'm sorry that's probably not the answer you're looking for. 

[JillStiles]

If I start a new course fresh, won't I lose all of my "assignments"?  I usually just adjust the due dates and tweak the assignments.  

[Chris_Hofer]

@JillStiles ...

No, you won't lose all your assignments.  When you have a brand new course shell in Canvas, you can import (copy) content from the existing course into your new course.  All your assignments (and any student  submissions) stay in the original course.  For your new course, you'll have a different set of students and all your content in that course so students can submit work to you there.  You'll still have access to your past course, too.

In general, this is a pretty common setup for lots of schools who use Canvas.  Rather than using one single course from semester to semester, you can have separate sections of the same course from semester to semester to keep your students separated.  This also help keeping your assignments/grading organized from semester to semester.  You never know...you might have certain assignments in your original course, but then for future versions of the course, your assignments might have slight changes that need to be made.

Anyway...I hope this helps to explain things a bit.  Sing out if you have any questions...thanks!

[Hildi_Pardo]

Hi @JillStiles -- One of the awesome things about Canvas is not having to recreate content from year to year -- you can simply import last year's content to this year's course.  

Here is an excerpt of "Beginning of Year Procedures" I share with my teachers:

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Do I have to create new course content each term/year?

No.  Unless you are teaching a completely different course/content, you can import last term’s content into this term’s course (Semester 1’s content into Semester 2’s course; or this year’s content into next year’s course).

How do I import the content from one APS Canvas course into another?

• First, you must have a role of “Teacher” in the course housing the content (the original course), and the role of “Teacher” in the target course (the course into which you are importing).
• NOTE:  Enter your target course (your Sandbox or new course) -- the one into which you want to import content.  From within your target course, click on Settings.
• On the far right will be a list of options.  Click on Import Course Content.
• Under Import Content is Content Type and a dropdown menu.  Select Copy a Canvas Course.  Under Search for a course, use the dropdown menu to select the course which has the content (or type the course name) - make sure to select the course from the correct Term.  (If the course is from a Past Term, and the course is Ended, be sure the Include Completed Courses checkbox is selected.) Under Content, click on the radial for All Content, or Select specific content if you only want to import specific elements of your course.  (Checking the box for Adjust Events and Due Dates will give you the option to Shift the dates OR Remove all due dates from graded items).  When you are ready, click on the blue Import button.
• Wait a few moments for the import to complete.  
• Canvas Guide:  How do I copy content from another Canvas course using Course Import tool?

[JeffCampbell]

You can import all of the content from one course to the next. This will allow you to keep all the work you have put in, and the ability to adjust dates and tweak assignments. Plus, if your past students can still see content, they will see assignments in the old course as they did when they took it rather than the tweaked versions.