Expanding Integration: Canvas Credentials Meets Course Export and Import

[DoraJekkel]

Dear Canvas Credential Community,

Moving Courses Just Got Easier

Imagine this: You're an administrator at a growing university, preparing to transition your courses to a new Canvas instance. You’ve invested months perfecting your course content, designing engaging learning paths, and establishing credentials that honor student achievements. Yet, the challenge remains—how can you transfer all this without compromising your carefully crafted micro-credential structure?

We’re excited to announce that starting February 17, Canvas Credentials will integrate with Canvas Course Export and Import. This means you can now effortlessly move courses—complete with all associated credentials and pathways—between Canvas instances.

Please note: This integration supports transferring courses between different Canvas instances only when they share the same Canvas Credentials instance and are within the same region.

A Natural Next Step

Not long ago, we introduced integrations for course copy and blueprint courses, streamlining credentialing across your institution. That update revolutionized the way institutions managed their courses and credentials. Now, with our new export and import functionality, your courses’ credentials will follow wherever they go—provided the necessary components are already in place at the destination.

What This Means for You

With this enhancement, you can:

• Move your Canvas courses between different Canvas instances (within the same region) without losing any credential-related data.
• Share your credential-rich courses with colleagues, so long as the target environment has the required badges, issuers, and pathways.
• Update course content and credentials across multiple instances without the hassle of manual reconfiguration.

How It Works

Use Case 1: A Smooth Institutional Migration

Sarah, a university administrator, is tasked with transitioning hundreds of courses to a new Canvas instance within her region. In the past, she dreaded the tedious process of manually recreating credentials for each course. Now, she simply exports the courses—including all credentials and pathways—and imports them into the new instance. As long as the target courses already have the necessary badges, issuers, and pathways configured, everything remains intact, ensuring a seamless migration.

Use Case 2: Sharing Made Simple (Within the Same Region)

James, an instructor, has designed a course featuring specialized micro-credential pathways and wants to share it with a colleague. By using the export feature, he sends the course package over to a colleague who imports it into their Canvas instance. Remember, for this to work flawlessly, the target course must already have the corresponding badges, issuers, and pathways in place. When these prerequisites are met, the credentials transfer seamlessly, guaranteeing a consistent learning experience.

Use Case 3: Keeping Content Up to Date

Monica, an instructional designer, frequently updates course credentials to keep pace with evolving industry standards. Instead of laboriously updating each instance one at a time, she exports the revised course and imports it across multiple Canvas instances (all within the same region and using the same Canvas Credentials instance). Provided that the target courses have the necessary configurations, her updates ensure that students always receive the most current information.

Important Considerations

To implement this integration, we need to update the developer keys. If you’ve customized the integration’s name or its visibility settings, these customizations may be temporarily altered for a few hours during the nighttime update. Rest assured, once the update is complete, we will restore your settings, and you should experience no lasting issues.

Please also keep in mind the following important considerations:

• Canvas Credentials Instance Consistency: The Canvas Credentials instance must remain the same, though you can transfer courses between different Canvas instances—as long as they are within the same region.
• Issuer Matching: The issuer on the original course must match the issuer on the course into which it is imported.
• Processing Delays: If a user accesses the Credentials tab while the import is still processing, they may need to complete an email verification and select the appropriate issuer before the copied data becomes visible.
• Existing Learners: When a course is imported into another course that already has learners:
  • Pathway and badge progress will update within 12 hours or when the “Update now” button is pressed, rather than recalculating instantly.
  • Notifications for new pathway subscriptions (both email and UI) will not be triggered immediately.
  • The pathways column on the issuer members page will not be recalculated right away.
• Prerequisite Configurations: Badges, issuers, and pathways must already exist on the target course. This means that transferring courses between different universities or regions will not work—this integration is only supported within the same region.
• Export Compatibility: If you attempt to export a course that has credentials installed only at the course level (and not at a sub-account or Root account level), the export functionality for that course will not work.
• Additional Considerations:

• If an imported course includes badge award criteria linked to assignments or quizzes, verify that these elements exist in the destination course. You might need to adjust the criteria manually if they are absent.
• Imported course credentials will adopt the visibility settings of the original issuer.
• If the imported course carries outdated issuer information, updating the issuer details will be necessary before badges can be awarded.

We Heard You

Your feedback has been crucial in shaping this integration. You expressed how vital it is not just to transfer course content, but also the credentials and pathways that define your courses. This update is our response to your needs—helping to streamline your workflows, support institutional migrations, and foster better collaboration.

We Want to Hear From You

How does this integration improve your credentialing workflow? Share your thoughts in the comments! Your feedback drives us to continue developing solutions that enhance your experience.

Thank You for Being a Valued Member of Our Community

Your input and support motivate us to keep improving. We’re excited to see how this integration empowers you to share and manage credentials more effectively. Thank you for being a vital part of the Canvas Credentials community!

Warm regards,

The Canvas Credentials Team