Creating courses through an API Post with only a Teacher trial account

[EdKane]

I'm using the ID from a teacher trial account to make the endpoint POST (/api/v1/accounts/:account_id/courses)  and when I attempt to create a new course, everything looks to work but I'm not seeing the course being created. Anyone know if the API POST's will work with a trial account?

 

[mzimmerman]

Hi @EdKane 

Are you getting a course object back when you run the API, as described in https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/courses.html#method.courses.create ?

That would be the biggest clue indicating whether or not it was working.

One thing to consider is that the API will create a new course, but it will not enroll you in the course.  So, you would not see it listed with your courses, even if it was successfully created.

[EdKane]

Yes - I get the response below. I guess then, is there a parameter that needs to be passed in to enroll me the teach in the course as well so I see it on my dashboard? Added my Request and Response samples. Trying to keep the request as simple as possible. 

[AtulSingh]

I'm also getting the same problem where I create the course but it does not shows into my dashboard. The main reason that I found is that the created course must me enrolled as a teacher.

If you have found the solution, please share with me

[mzimmerman]

@AtulSingh 

That makes sense, since creating a course and enrolling a user are really separate operations.

I wonder if you could use the "enroll a user" API (https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/enrollments.html#method.enrollments_api.create ) with the course_id that is returned by the "create course" API to enroll yourself in the course?

[105947621702175]

 I am also facing the same issue with a free tier Teacher account.

It is a weird issue with the Canvas LMS API that's blocking our course-creation workflow. Hoping someone has seen this before.

What's happening:

1. We make a POST /api/v1/accounts/{account_id}/courses call
2. This account id is the one which is binding to the courses I have created via the dashboard. which I can retrieve via api/v1/courses
3. Get back a clean 201 Created response with valid course data (id, name, timestamps, the works)
4. Immediately try to fetch the course with GET /api/v1/courses/{id}
5. ...and it's gone. 404. Doesn't exist.

The course also doesn't show up in our "get all courses" calls or in the Canvas UI dashboard. It's like the API says "yep, created!" but then the course vanishes into thin air.

Additional weirdness: Even when I try to enroll my user via /api/v1/courses/{course_id}/enrollments using the course ID from the 201 response, I'm getting a 403 Forbidden error.

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Hi @105947621702175 

When you create the course via the API, are you also including the "Enroll_me":"true" parameter when creating your course via the API?  If you do not include that parameter, then there is nothing to link you to the course after you have created it...