Do Canvas Courses Get Deleted?

Environment

Canvas

Issue

Does the ITS-Canvas team delete Canvas courses?

Resolution

• Yes, but only unused courses are deleted.
  • Unused courses are defined as those with no assignments, announcements, discussions, files, modules, pages, or quizzes, and are not published.
  • Published courses with content and student submissions and grades will not be deleted.
• ITS-Canvas typically deletes unused courses once a year.
• ITS-Canvas sends out a notification when cleaning up unused Canvas courses to everyone enrolled in the Canvas @ Michigan course.
  • Enroll in the Canvas @ Michigan course

Why delete unused courses?

• Academic course sites are automatically provisioned beginning 180 days before the beginning of the term.
• One Canvas course is created for each section of each course in the course catalog (with a couple exceptions).
• However, not all courses are used.
• To avoid an excessive number of courses being displayed in an instructor’s Canvas course listing, unused courses are periodically deleted by ITS.

Additional Information

• 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

For additional questions, please contact the ITS Service Center