Reusing Course Materials
Canvas Course Import
You can copy course content, such as assignments, modules, pages, and discussions, from Canvas courses into other courses.
Internal Copy
You only have access to copy content from courses in which you are enrolled as a user with instructor permissions. See the section on External copies for reusing content from other instructors.
For instructions on copying a course, see the Canvas Instructor Guide: How do I copy content from another Canvas course using the Course Import tool?
Notes:
- Course imports may not include all content. For more details, please see the import content section in the Canvas Basics Guide.
- Importing a course more than once may have unintended consequences. If you import content into a new course, edit the content in the new course, and later import the previous content again, the imported content will override the existing content.
- If you copy all content or include course settings in selected content, the grade posting policy from the original course will override the grade posting policy in the new course. The participation dates from the original course will override the participation dates in the new course. Additionally, imported assignments will retain their assignment posting policy and participation dates from the original course.
- Content linked through external third-party tools, Kaltura, Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Respondus LockDown Exams, may not be copied to the new course. The links may still point to the previous course and need to be replaced to prevent students in the new course from getting error messages about not having access to the content.
External Copy
If you are not copying between your own courses, you can use the following options instead.
Send To
To send content you've created to another course or instructor, see the Instructor Guide: How do I send a module to another instructor. To help manage any content shared with you in this way, see the Instructor Guide: How do I manage content shared to me from other users.
Commons
Using the Canvas Commons will create an eternal copy that can be used by any faculty member who needs a good starting point for their course builds. You can even restrict the Commons course to only A-State users if necessary.
- How do I use Commons
- How do I share a course to Commons
- How do I import and view a Commons resources in Canvas
Export/Import
Blackboard Content
Much like with the importing of a Canvas course export package, you can also use the Canvas Course Import Tool to import an export package from Blackboard. When using the tool to import Blackboard content, select Blackboard 6/7/8/9 export .zip file from the Content Type dropdown menu. Then browse to locate the file saved on your computer. To learn more about importing these packages, see the Canvas help site.
You can retrieve these Blackboard export files for Archived courses from Spring 2019 and earlier from our Blackboard Utility Package. Blackboard Classes from Summer 2019 to Summer 2023 are instead located in the K16 Archive Platform (Blackboard). Instructions for using the Blackboard Utility Package are located below, but please contact one of the Canvas support offices for assistance with the K16 Archive Platform.
When you select Archived Courses in the right menu, you should see a list of past courses. By clicking the listed Course ID, you can download a package file that contains all the content from the old course.
Classes restored through this import process will only contain the materials used to teach the class. They do not contain student work or grades from the past class. If you have any issues with the Blackboard Utility Package or need grades and student work from one of these Archived classes, please open a ticket with the ITS HelpDesk.
Import Issue - File Storage Quota Exceeded
ITS has set a course size limit of 2 GB. This limit was set to keep us within the storage space we are allotted. If you try to add content to a course that would exceed this limit, you will receive a "file storage quota exceeded" error message.
To fix this issue in Canvas, first check the Files area of the course are attempting to import.
You can then view your user quota and what percentage of that quota has been used [2]. To learn how to manage course files, see the Canvas Instructor Guide: How do I view course files?.
If you want to see the files for all your courses, click the All My Files link.
If you get this error, you will need to go through these files to remove any duplicated material or resources that are not used. Any videos stored here should be moved to Kaltura, as that is our video management service. Videos stored in Kaltura can be linked to your class without using any of your allotted space. Once you have freed up enough space here you should be able to create a new export that is under the 2 GB limit.