Good morning,
With this newsletter, I try to share tips based on feedback from my readers—what interests you, what I foresee as being most helpful to you at that point in the semester. But in addition, I note what questions are been asked, and if enough folks are having the same issue, I share a newsletter about it.
Today’s tip: best practices for finding and copying old courses.
All your past courses can be found by going to the Courses link on the global navigation menu to the left of your Canvas screen. When you click “Courses,” you’ll see another menu linking to all your current courses. At the top is a link to All Courses.
When you click “All Courses,” a page will open that lists (surprise) all the courses that are connected to your account. This includes all the courses you’ve taught, as well as any courses you’ve been added to or portals you’ve created.
For all official courses (i.e., ones from Jenzabar), you’ll see the term to the right of the course name, but no course code. If you want course codes to show, the courses will need a nickname, which can be added on the Dashboard.
The star icon means the course is “favorited” and will show up on my Dashboard even after the semester is over.
Past courses will show under the “Past Enrollments” heading, like in the screenshot above. Since terms can’t be filtered or sorted on this page, I recommend using Ctrl + F (one of the keyboard shortcuts from last week) to search for the term directly. For example, if I needed to copy from last fall, I’d look for a course from “Fall 2023-2024.”
Click on the link to the course in question. Look at the URL bar at the top of your browser and find the numbers that appear after /courses/ in the URL. Write them down or highlight and copy them with Ctrl + C. These numbers are the ID of the course in Canvas, and we can use them to easily copy this course.
Note that your course ID will be typically four to five digits long. Our newer courses will have longer numbers!
Now you can go back to your All Courses page and find the course you need to copy into under the heading “Future Enrollments.” Click the course’s name and look for the “Import Existing Content” button to the right:
On the import page, select “Copy a Canvas Course” from the drop-down menu…
…then paste the ID (Ctrl + V) or type the ID into the “Search for a course” field that appears. You’ll see the course name listed out, and you’ll know it’s the right term and section because you’re using the ID!
It’s also worth noting that when you copy over materials, you don’t have to copy everything. The default of “All content” moves everything from grading schemes to assignments, but if you just want to pick and choose, you can do so by selecting the “Select specific content” option, then clicking the Import button. You’ll see a list of content to select from after that.
If you need help with being added to courses, copying in bulk, accessing old courses, etc., please reach out. If there several courses you need help with, please provide them all at once—working in bulk helps me get things done faster for you!
In honor of National Poetry Month, here’s the haiku version of today’s newsletter:
Copy your courses
By copying course IDs
It’s much easier!
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