Copy content into multiple courses at once

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

 

  Idea will be open for vote May 5th, 2015 - August 5th, 2015  Learn more about voting...

 


As an instructor, I'd like to copy content from a single course to multiple other courses at one time. I'd like to be able to go to the course in which the content now resides, select items to copy, and then select one or multiple courses into which to copy the content. This would help me at the beginning of terms as, for instance, I copy content from a "master" course where I've developed my content into multiple Canvas courses, because my institution places each section of a given academic course into separate Canvas courses.

 

transferred from the old Community

Originally posted by: Chris Long

Special thanks for contributions from: Kat Mulvey, Sandy McArthur, Barb Miltner, Betsy Walker

 

  Comments from Instructure

May 2016 Update

From Kate McGee, Commons Product Manager

 

I'm excited to announce as of last week, we’ve updated the functionality in Commons to allow users to import content into multiple courses at once.

 

 

Here is how it's done:

  • Share the course you want to copy to Commons (publicly, institutionally, or privately)
  • You should be able to select any/all of the courses by check-marking the course(s) to which you want to import.
  • On the resource detail page, Click "Import into Course"

 

More details in this guide: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2005

 

This was a request from the community. Your feedback is essential to our product's continued improvement. Thank you so much to all of you!

 

 

Preview of User Interface:

184846_Screen Shot 2016-05-25 at 3.47.36 PM.pngScreen Shot 2016-05-25 at 3.47.36 PM.png

 

November 2015 update

I may be biased, but I'm pretty sure we have the most amazing Community of users ever!  We appreciate all of the energy and effort that everyone of you put into a feature idea, and we appreciate even more when you keep returning to tell us how to make it better.

 

When Commons was released we knew that it would be a possible solution for some users, but we also acknowledge that it is not the ideal user experience for many.  For this very reason, we would like to revert this idea from complete and mark it as "under consideration" while we work toward a better option!  Please follow and bookmark this idea to receive updates as they are available!

For more information on the feature idea stages please reference How does the voting process work for feature ideas?

 

July response from Kate McGee

Greetings All!

Commons is now available and provides the ability to import content into more than one course from a simple Commons import menu.

Here is how it's done:

  • Share the course you want to copy to Commons (publicly, institutionally, or privately)
  • On the resource detail page, Click "Import into Course"
  • Select your course from the dropdown
  • Repeat the "Import into Course" for each course you want to content copied into

Note: that you won't be able to copy multiple versions of a resource into one course without replacing the initial resource, at least not yet

Chris Long because you were the original poster in the old community, will you give this a try and let us know if it meets your needs!?

 

 

53 Comments
clong
Community Champion

Sounds good  @scottdennis ​ Deactivated user​ :smileycool:

kmooberry
Community Novice

Hi Scott,

I am with Chris on this one - Commons does not meet my needs. I, too, and many teachers at my school, are also "creating content on the fly." I am wondering if this feature of copying into multiple courses right at the creation screen is in the works? I love pretty much all other features of Canvas, but when I have to go into each course individually to import content 4 or 5 times, it becomes a real time suck. I appreciate any information on where this feature might be headed.

Thank you,

Keara

julie_king
Community Novice

Scott and Keara,

It's really true. There has to be a better way to get this content into all our "like" courses from the start. I see that someone posted a video of the Google Classroom method, which looks pretty straight forward. Canvas seems to have a different idea, which would work if there weren't so many clicks involved. As a classroom teacher, my time is very, very limited and every minute makes a difference.

I love Canvas and will continue to follow the progress on this oh-so-important element.

Julie

dhinkel
Community Novice

I see that "This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas", but when I tried to do it, I could only choose 1 class at a time and and had to do it for each and every class subsequently. I'm kind of a stickler and read the Feature Idea as "Copy content into multiple courses at once". I'm focusing on the "at once". Did the name of this Feature Idea change during the submission process or am I missing out on how to do this correctly? I apologize in advance if I missed the answer somewhere, but I did look and didn't see where it has been implemented.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

I may be biased, but I'm pretty sure we have the most amazing Community of users ever!  We appreciate all of the energy and effort that everyone of you put into a feature idea, and we appreciate even more when you keep returning to tell us how to make it better. 

When Commons was released we knew that it would be a possible solution for some users, but we also acknowledge that it is not the ideal user experience for many.  For this very reason, we would like to revert this idea from complete and mark it as "under consideration" while we work toward a better option!  Please follow and bookmark this idea to receive updates as they are available!

For more information on the feature idea stages please reference How does the voting process work for feature ideas?

kona
Community Champion

Very very happy to see that this is under consideration! This is a big issue for a lot of users and would save people a lot of time!

clong
Community Champion

Smiley Happy Bravo!!

Thank You for recognizing this was not addressed with Commons and for reconsidering this idea!

canvas_admin
Community Champion

Don't know how I missed this one, but this can be done via the API.

There was an InstructureCon 2015 presentation on how to do this that I highly recommend:

I've now done this for 2 semesters and it has worked wonderfully!

clong
Community Champion

Thanks Mark, I was at that session as well and I just don't think the everyday teacher should have to do all that.  The original idea was for an average teacher to be able to do this on the fly with a click of a button like you can when Adding Assignments to Multiple Classes in Google Classroom

canvas_admin
Community Champion

Fair enough.   I was posting that so that those who have the time might like to try it while awaiting word from Canvas. The longest time was the initial setup, but after that it's been really simple and ​almost as easy as the click of a button (more like 3-4 buttons). Smiley Happy