[Dashboard] Allow past enrollments to be added to course menu

I'm a designer.  I have a ton of courses in my "all courses" list, and would like to periodically switch which ones I'm able to quickly access from my customized list, even if the course is one from the past.  Canvas says "To customize the list of courses, click on the "All Courses" link and star the courses to display."  Of course they fail to tell you that this doesn't apply to past enrollments.  Bummer.

 

My idea: Make it so when I click on the star next to a course in the Past Enrollments section, I don't get a message that says "This course cannot be added to the courses menu at this time."  

35 Comments
hasti
Community Champion

This is a MUCH needed feature. The absence of it combined with the slow context switches as I go to all my courses and then click on the class I want mean that the lack of this is adding hours of wasted time to my course development every semester.

ceb
Community Novice

Past Enrollments is a mess! It's not organized by date and cannot be customized or ordered.

When you have loads of previous classes, it's a pain to find old information! Pretty please fix this archaic system.

joe_fahs
Community Participant

One of the purposes of Canvas is to provide simplicity and clarity to faculty. Not being able to determine which courses (Past and Current) show in the Dashboard is disappointing. 

mr_briantucker
Community Novice

Somehow my school administrators removed my prior semester's courses from the dashboard and I'm told they can't be replaced there, even by them.  Extremely bad, time-wasting software design.  I'm discouraged to see that this proposal has been online for about three years, and no action has been taken.

ams1
Community Novice

This is a very important (and I would have thought basic) function to have.  When I am teaching a course I have taught before, I want the old course to be available on the dashboard, so that I can refer to content easily and whenever I want.

sarah-canatsey
Community Participant

I agree with the above comments. Seems a simple fix from Canvas' side to allow faculty more choice in what is displayed on their dashboard. Especially with so many courses going online right now, it's annoying to keep going through so many steps to refer back to a past enrollment course. What issue is there for someone to favorite an old course? They can't edit the course, so now concerns there. 

ScorpionXT
Community Member

Hello team, I was told to post this idea in here because my issue is related.

An instructor showed me a great featurehow to apply and edit Nicknames to course titles (which are very cryptic to begin with).  But he also pointed out something disappointing.  There is currently no way to edit the Nicknames for past courses that have moved beyond the Dashboard and into Past Enrollments (under All Courses).

I have 18 courses in my Past Enrollments, and when I'm looking for old study material in a specific class I have to click each course (whose only descriptor is a number) hoping to find the syllabus that tells me what course I am in (i.e. Mobile App Design, Digital Media, etc).

This is frustrating especially when even if I miraculously remember the course I'm looking for is COMM 644, I have 4 "COMM 644" Courses to click through to verify if it's the correct one (see embedded screenshot).  If I don't know the course number, I potentially have to click through 18 courses.

Please consider adding the ability to edit old course Nicknames as well.

I cannot apply Nicknames to old course so they are unknown until I click thru them all each time I'm looking for something.I cannot apply Nicknames to old course so they are unknown until I click thru them all each time I'm looking for something.

raehale
Community Explorer

I would love to see this too! How do I upvote this?

ryanlovesyou
Community Novice

I want this feature so bad.  Please.  It would make my life so much easier.  

RSMacLeod
Community Explorer

For those of us with numerous past Canvas courses, it is very cumbersome to have to select and then navigate the entire list each time we wish to access a course we taught the year before.  I am constantly pulling content from the previous courses I teach and wish to be able to rapidly switch among them. 

Yes, highlighting or adding a course to the favorites lists is nice but it ONLY WORKS FOR CURRENT COURSES.  I propose we all ANY course to be added to the favorites list so that we can create a useful organization of courses we require frequent access to.