Change of Instructors w/o losing old course

[mdejesus]

Currently when I change a lead teacher in my SIS (PowerSchool) it prompts canvas to create a whole new course. This action erases the course content, I know I can export it beforehand, but I can't salvage the student submissions. I would like a way to save student submission or a way to possibly keep the prior course instance instead of erasing it.

[Stef_retired]

@mdejesus 

Thanks for sharing this idea. Before we move it forward as a request for an enhancement to the partner integration with PowerSchool, have you already approached PowerSchool directly about the effect on Canvas when changing the lead teacher in their application?

[mdejesus]

Hi Stefanie, 

I have not. I don't see how this is something PowerSchool can change on their end.

[Stef_retired]

@mdejesus  I am admittedly not a PowerSchool user, but in Canvas itself, adding a teacher or changing the teacher for a course doesn't prompt creation of a new course, nor are the enrollments or assignment submissions lost. Also, "lead teacher" isn't a concept in Canvas. It sounds like something that PowerSchool would need to address first. Would you please contact them to ask more about how this works?

[mdejesus]

So in PowerSchool I can edit teacher assignments by editing the section. Every section needs to have a Lead Teacher. I can either replace the lead teacher listing for the entire year or add a new listing and set the appropriate start and end dates. The "Additional" sections are for co-teachers (not required). Screenshot provided below. Co-teachers aren't automatically synced to Canvas and given teacher roles (we have to add them manually in Canvas). Only the lead teacher comes over with the teacher role.

Editing Teachers in PowerSchool

When I change the lead teacher in any of the two ways listed above Canvas creates an entirely new course id and deletes/overwrites the pre-existing one (it won't even be listed under Past Enrollments and Canvas support has confirmed in the past the the old course doesn't exist except only on the beta and test sites). In my PowerSchool database the only thing that changes when I change a teacher is just the teacherid field. The Sectiondcid stays the same and therefore the contents of the PowerTeacher Pro (official gradebook) remain intact as well. 

I called PowerSchool upon your recommendation and they didn't really know how they could help. Everything is working as it should in the SIS. The way that Canvas is processing that teacher change is where the issue really lies and that's not really their jurisdiction. 

Something in the Canvas importing process is choosing to create courses/ generate course ids based on the teacher that its assigned to instead of treating teachers as an enrollment of that course.

I hope this provided some clarity to my request!

[Stef_retired]

@mdejesus 

We appreciate the time you've taken to investigate this with PowerSchool and write up such a comprehensive response. If you would, would you please oblige us with one more request—namely to ask Canvas Support (and specifically someone in Canvas Support who specializes in SIS integrations) to confirm that the Canvas action (to create a new course instead of just changing the teacher) is by design? To save time, you can provide the link to this conversation in the support request and ask the agent to read through it to get the necessary context.

Thanks!

[MrWilliams]

This is a MASSIVE MASSIVE MASSIVE issue for us, and I would so appreciate the ability to maintain a course's existing structure when navigating such a common staffing issue!

[mdejesus]

@Stef_retired 

I reached out to support. Technically it is by design. They said that it's because our current data flow in set to one to many courses to sections. This is what allows the grouping of sections into one course shell / course id number. They said that if i changed it to one to one there's a possibility that i wouldn't have that teacher change issue- however this means that sections of a common subject wouldn't be grouped and teachers would have to cross list their sections themselves if they wanted this feature (the mess/ confusion that this would create amongst the teachers is not even worth trying to find out). 

They did offer a workaround. I could cross list the new course id back to the old course id and it would provide access to the student's previous submissions. However, if a teachers schedule was spilt amongst 5 different teachers (which is often what happens), cross listing them to the old section would essentially make them share the course shell. This is really only a good workaround if one single teacher was absorbing the old teachers schedule.

[Stef_retired]

@mdejesus Thank you so much for taking the time to investigate this thoroughly with both partners in the integration with PowerSchool. We'll move it forward as a request for an enhancement to the one-to-many/one-to-one communication between the platforms.

[ProductPanda]

Comments from Instructure

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.