A popular feature of Canvas is the ability to reuse course content.

Do you need a refresher on how to copy content from one Canvas course to another?  Watch the following ~6-minute video demonstration or access written instructions here.

Course copy tips for success

  • Choose Select specific content (NOT All content).
  • Leave Import existing quizzes as New Quizzes unchecked unless you want to use New Quizzes.  What is New Quizzes?

Import existing quizzes as New Quizzes

  • Do not copy Calendar Events. This will copy calendar items from the past which you likely don’t want in your new course.
  • Do not copy things more than once into the same course. If you copy the same item into the same course more than once, the item you previously copied will be overwritten with the newly copied item.
  • Consider using the Adjust events and due dates feature to shift or remove due dates.
  • Do not copy Course Settings if you were using missing/late submission policies in your past course.  This will copy the Gradebook settings to your new course, and you risk ending up with a Gradebook full of 0s immediately after the course copy.
  • Turn off any missing/late submission policies in your new course before importing assignments from a past course.  To do this, click on Grades in the course navigation menu to open the Gradebook.  Click the gear/Settings icon in the upper right corner.  Select the Late Policies tab.

Once your course copy is complete

✅ Use the link validator

Did you know that there is a tool you can use to check your Canvas course for broken links?  Learn how to find and use the link validator in this Canvas guide:

How do I validate links in a course?

✅ Update due dates

You will need to check and adjust the due dates and availability dates for assignments, quizzes, graded discussions, etc.  Did you know that there is a way to do this all on one page rather than editing each individual item?  Learn how in this Canvas guide:

How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?

⚠ Known issue with the new “Assign To” tray in Canvas

If you are unable to save edits to assignments and quizzes after copying content from a past Canvas course into a Summer 2024 or Fall 2024 Canvas course, please click on the “Manage Due Dates and Assign To” link at the bottom of the edit page.  This will open a panel on the right where you can update the due date and/or availability dates.  Click to watch a brief video demonstration.

Manage Due Dates and Assign To link while editing a Canvas assignment

Canvas is aware of this user experience issue and is actively working on a fix.

✅ Recreate items that don’t copy well

Some items don’t copy or don’t copy well and need to be recreated in the new course.  Some examples are:

  • Turnitin assignments
  • Third-party integrations (publisher tools, etc.)
  • Zoom meetings

✅ Were you using the old Google integration?

The old Google integration has been retired and replaced with a new 1.3 integration.

Any links, embedded files, Collaborations, or Google Drive cloud assignments created in Canvas using the old Google integration will need to be recreated.

Please see this blog post for more information.

Questions?  Need support?