Copy Content into New Canvas Course

Environment

Canvas
Settings

Issue

How to reuse and copy Canvas content from one course into another existing empty course.

Resolution

Important: importing the same course content more than once will overwrite any existing content in the course. 

Notes: 

• Enrollments, student submissions, and student grades are not copied.
• Instructors are not able to create new Canvas course sites. You will need to either have an existing empty course site (course sites are automatically provisioned 180 days before a term's start date) or have a Canvas admin or subaccount admin create a new course site. 
• You will need to be listed as a Teacher, TA, or Designer for both courses. A Canvas subaccount admin is also able to copy content.

Copy specific or all content and material from another course:

1. Access the course in which you would like to copy content to
2. Go into course Settings (lower left)
3. Choose Import Course Content (right side)
4. Choose Copy a Canvas Course from the drop down
5. Select the course that contains the content you want to copy
6. Choose All Content or Select Specific Content as appropriate
7. You can choose to alter the dates on your imported content
   • Removing the dates altogether and then going in and adjusting them appropriately
     • View Instructure guide How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
   • Shifting the dates to specify the start and end dates of the new course
     • View Instructure guide How do I adjust events and due dates in a course import?
8. Click Import
9. If you selected to choose specific content it may take a couple minutes to process the job
   1. Click the Select Content button
   2. Check only the boxes next to the content items you would like to copy into the course, then click Select Content
   • See the Instructure guide How do I select specific content as part of a course import?

• View the Instructor guide How do I copy content from another Canvas course using the Course Import tool? for step-by-step details

External Tools Notes:

• External tools (LTIs) cannot be copied over into another course via these steps.
• See the Import Into Media Gallery article for more information about copying a MiVideo Media Gallery.
• If course content contains embedded MiVideo media, that media becomes associated with the new course and can be viewed by anyone enrolled in the course.

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