[Calendar] Copy or Duplicate a Event

A good instructional design practice is to have a predictable module structure for students to follow throughout a course. Many courses use the calendar to clearly communicate deadlines to students, and must do so with consistent format.

 

Currently copying requires creating a calendar event, and copying content for each item. By adding a “copy” button, the effort to build a course will be greatly reduced. If this triggered a dialogue to state how many copies to make, it would be very simple to quickly build out a calendar structure.

 

Please help to flesh out this idea by discussing your particular use case in the comments.

 

 

Added to Theme

27 Comments
Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  Idea is currently in Product Radar Learn more about this stage...
kmcpher1
Community Member

It would be helpful to copy to other courses as well. Thanks!

mbrown6
Community Explorer

I like this idea, but am a little unclear.  Is this to copy within a class (which, agreed, you could likely do a repeat), or amont different course calendars?  If it is the case to copy within a class, what if the repeat is not every Friday?  What if the event falls on different days depending on unit cycles or some other factor?  I agree that a copy button would be beneficial - to add the even ton a different date within a course would be marvelous.

Even more so, as an instructor with multiple science courses, I am working to share community events with all of the courses.  During the month of September, I have 7 community events to share with 6 different classes.  That means I have to create 42 different events for just 7 events.  This is taking an absurd amount of time.  Forward thinking for the rest of the school year - do I just say, eh, forgettaboutit kids - and not share these fabulous community events with them?  Or, is there a way I can create one event in one course, and then import or share it with another class?  I looked in the Canvas Instructor Guides and see nothing that can help.  Advice is appreciated, but a simpler route to sharing such events and saving time would be greatly appreciated.


Sincerely,

Mickey Sullivan

San Diego Unified School District

kmcpher1
Community Member

I agree. This describes the need of many instructors at our university.

jbuchner
Community Contributor

Could you use course import (selected content) and import the events to your other courses? Still not exactly what you want, but maybe slightly faster?

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

Greetings  @jthoms ‌

In the Canvas Beta Release Notes (2018-06-11) there is a section on Event Duplication.  It's not a new feature, but it is an update to the previously known "recurring event" feature.  

Does the functionality of this feature meet what you are seeking? 

jthoms
Community Novice

It's not quite exactly what I had in mind, as the duplication is tied to the original date, but it goes a long way towards what the intention was. 

I would have to test to be sure, but I'd imagine one workaround would be to set a daily repeat for the desired number of copies and then to drag to the desired days of the event (assuming it's not a regular occurrence).

Humbled and glad to see so many of these duplication requests moving forward.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

Thank you for taking a look  @jthoms ! 

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

The Radar idea stage has been removed from the Feature Idea Process.  You can read more about why in the blog post Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes.

 

This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities.  This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for you to see the true top voted ideas in one sort, here.

alexey_vdovin
Community Novice

As a temporary partial fix for this issue I suggest making a Duplicate functionality(How do I duplicate an event in the Calendar as an instructor?) available for the events that have been created before. Currently duplication is only possible when creating a new event.