Duplicate, Clone, or Copy anything in Canvas

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas
An option to "make a copy" should be present on nearly every gear in Canvas -- modules, quizzes, assignments, announcements, pages, discussions, rubrics...

 

Consistency is an important element of good course design, and this would help instructors and designers achieve it more easily.

 

Ideas related to this have been developed and depoyed

 

This idea was completed through the Khaki 2017: Priorities & Related Ideas

Here are the content items that were completed as part of Khaki

- Module Item Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-11-18) 

- Module Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2018-06-23) 

- Assignment Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-07-15) 

- Discussion Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-10-28) 

- Page Duplication: Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-07-15) 

You can read more about Khaki in What in the world does “Khaki” have to do with Canvas?

*We know that the ability to copy a rubric from the rubric manager does not currently exist, but we have elected to mark this idea as complete anyways.  If copying a rubric is something that you think should be developed, please add your comment and vote to https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/5167" modifiedtitle="true" title="Copy a rubric.

154 Comments
awilliams
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Woohoo! I used it last week too. Even used it in conjunction with my mouse click macro recording solution. Check out my little write up of that at Killing All the Clicks: Automating Tasks in Canvas

rachels222
Community Member

This would make working in Canvas so much easier.

jgood1
Community Novice

I realize that you've added functionality to duplicate assignments in the same course, I still need to be able to quickly duplicate assignments between different courses. My courses are not exactly the same, they're not different sections of the same course, but they often share the same assignments. Your competitors all offer this basic functionality that would save me 15-20 minutes of real life time and frustration when I'm duplicating assignments individually. Yes, I know I can export things to commons and re-import them. Yes, I can import assignments via the import content-> copy canvas course function. Both of these require me to go into each course and copy assignments one at a time. Please make this a priority.

ben_guido
Community Novice

I was just about to go put this idea out there, and thought I should check to see if it was already discussed, figuring it probably was somewhere. Lo and behold, it's the top thing on the product radar. It is such a waste of time to go through and manually create the same weekly assignment/survey/quiz 16 times, having to get all the settings right each time.

Also, if it hasn't been mentioned, being able to copy a QUESTION on a quiz and in a question bank would be quite useful. I use a clumsy workaround by having a "copy area" question bank so that I can one by one move a question to another bank while still leaving a copy in the copy area bank to edit it and then move it again and again, always leaving the question in the copy area bank as I do this.

Chris_Hofer
Community Coach
Community Coach

Lo and behold, it's the top thing on the product radar. It is such a waste of time to go through and manually create the same weekly assignment/survey/quiz 16 times, having to get all the settings right each time.

Hi  @ben_guido ...

The ability to duplicate assignments (not quizzes/surveys/graded discussions) in your "Assignments" area of your course is now possible.  Just click the gear icon to the right of the assignment name, and then click on "Duplicate".  This also works for content in your "Pages" screen.  Check out this portion of the July 15, 2017 Production Release Notes.

jgood1
Community Novice

Hi Chris.... it's a function in the same course only. I need to be quickly able to copy assignments between courses. This one "quirk" wastes 15 minutes of my life every time I need to recreate the same assignment across multiple courses.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

 @jgood1 ‌ It sounds like you may want to check out Blueprint Courses?  Here are a couple great resources for this.

Chris_Hofer
Community Coach
Community Coach

Hi  @jgood1 ...


Does your school use Canvas Commons?  If so, have you thought about sharing the assignment to Commons (making sure all your settings are the way you want before sharing to Commons, of course), and then you could then go to Commons and import that assignment to multiple courses.  And, if there was a change later on that you needed to make, you'd update the "master" assignment, and then go back into Commons to push out that change to all the "child" courses.  Would that work for your needs?

How do I share a resource to Commons? 

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-11222-38287725358 

Another option is Blueprint courses...which it looks like  @Renee_Carney ‌ has already mentioned.  🙂

debra_russell
Community Novice

Yes!