Restore or Undelete Items (Announcements, Assignments, Quizzes, etc.) in Canvas Courses

Environment

Canvas

Issue

Course content has been accidentally deleted, can it be restored?

Resolution

This functionality is available to Canvas admins, teachers, and TAs. Many different types of course content can be restored, however not all deleted content can be restored using this method.

1. Navigate to course in Canvas.  
2. Modify URL by adding /undelete on end.  E.g., https://umich.instructure.com/courses/123/undelete
3. A listing of items that have been deleted will appear.  Click "Restore" next to each item you want to undelete.

Items are restored to their original state:

• Published/unpublished
• Read/unread (e.g., announcements)
• With grades and submissions (assignments, quizzes)

Additional Information

PAGE or ASSIGNMENT restore fails

Mastery Paths, a Canvas feature, creates fake assignments when the MP flag is set in Canvas pages. If the assignment is deleted, the page is also deleted. This is the usual cause of deleted home pages than cannot be restored (Restore Failed). The clue that MP is involved is when you find a deleted assignment with the same name as the page.

1. If the page was the home page, try setting a new temporary home page (create dummy page, publish, use as front page, then set it to the front page).
2. Attempt to restore the deleted page again.
3. On success, edit the restored page and check to see if the "Use in Mastery Paths" flag was set. If yes, unset it. Save, Publish, Use as Front Page, Set as Front page.
4. Site owner should not use the Mastery Paths flag unless they are using Mastery Paths.
5. Instructure does not officially document this feature because it is not guaranteed to work 100% of the time.
   1. If this process doesn't successfully recover the content, Contact the ITS Service Center.
6. Discussions can be restored but the posts cannot
7. New Quizzes that have been deleted do not show up in the list of items on the undelete page.  Deleted New Quizzes can only be restored by Instructure. 
   1. Per Instructure, this may only be recoverable until the next Beta reset. The data needs to be in Canvas Beta in order to be restored to production.

Resources and Questions

• Check out the new Academic Technology@Michigan website for course planning resources from across U-M.
• Visit the Canvas @ Michigan site for faculty including the U-M Instructor Guide with links to additional support resources from across campus.
• Check out the Canvas and MiVideo tutorials.

Need additional information or assistance? Contact the ITS Service Center.