Ability to Delete All Content instead of Reset

[karen_bowden]

I have a need to delete all content including files and pages and replace them. However, I only have two options.

1. Reset changes the course ID which is not an option.
2. Manually delete everything one-at-a-time because there is no way to delete multiple files in Canvas. (We're talking hundreds here.)

I can see reset as useful for semester or yearly courses. But reset is not designed for continuous courses. 

If anyone has any ideas for alternatives I'm open to suggestions so I can clean up my course without disrupting current students while I'm changing things.

[e5j]

We also have this need.
Resetting the course is ideal but we can't change the course ID because it breaks the connection with our middleware that brings in the course info from the registration system.

Alternatively a delete everything button without changing the course ID would also be great

How about importing a new template that erases all the old material without changing the course ID?

Really anyway to completely clear a course without changing the course ID.

[gerrypedraza]

Can this be made so that there is a button that deletes all the content without changing the SIS ID and the URL of the course?

[James]

@e5j 

I would look into the middleware and if the number could be changed there. It is likely a database entry that someone has access to change.

Deleting everything leaves a lot of crud behind the scenes. Most things are soft-deleted (only marked as deleted in the database). Some API calls do not filter out the deleted entries and so they get sent along with the current ones, meaning that you're slowing things down by deleting as opposed to resetting.

In general, I suspect that a reset should be done rarely for actual courses. If you're doing it a lot, then you're probably doing things inefficiently (design in a sandbox rather than in the actual course). Some schools make it hard for faculty to do a reset.

When we had an on-going courses that needed a lot of new content, we ended up creating a new course and then moving all the students who hadn't finished the old one into the new one. This was an orientation course and they lost anything they had done so far, but by the time we did it, things had changed enough and it had been so long since they had worked on it, that they needed to do the complete thing anyway.

[e5j]

Hi @James,

Thanks for the response!

I've made some inquiries to the sys admin about the middleware. The communication is all automatic but I'm sure they are looking into it. At issue is the Canvas admins have removed the ability to reset do to the course ID change causing the communication issue.

At the same time a template is applied to all courses for a 15 week term but we have many courses that operate on a different schedule and need to design the course for this abbreviated term. Currently we are left with manually deleting all the content which is tedious and consumes too much of already limited time.

Creating a new course in Canvas would cause the same communication issue.

Ultimately I just need to be able to serve my customers but have no real power to effect change on the these systems so I'm trying all avenues to find the solution.

[James]

@e5j 

This sounds like a problem your institution is creating for itself. I've experienced that when people do things without communicating with the stakeholders to see what they really need.

Maybe there is a way to better define which courses need the template applied? That's likely to happen faster than Canvas writing a "delete everything but keep the same course ID" script. Since there isn't a big demand for it from their end. That script could be written and implemented at the local level because there are APIs for almost everything and you could iterate through them one by one and delete things. It is still not the best way to get it done -- it is better to not create the problem in the first place than to try and undo it later. It might be as simple as refining the query that determines which courses get the template applied, but until the people communicate with each other, the other side might not even know there is a problem.

[e5j]

@James 
I agree. I certainly wouldn't be here if I could get some traction locally but I am still pursuing it. Unfortunately the default position seems to be removing Canvas functionality, reset, rather than tweak our in house software.

Of course if the built-in reset function does need improving to remove the crud and we can get it to not change the course ID at the same time, then it is worth pursuing. Acceptance of crud on either end really isn't acceptable.

[ProductPanda]

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