How do you start cleaning up a copy of a copy of a copy?

Hello, colleagues! I'm looking for strategies to help faculty clean up courses that have been copied multiple times, and now have outdated and broken content. Is there a "best" way to get started with a fresh version of a course, besides starting from scratch?

Thanks for your insights!

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Admin

Instructional Designer

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mae_case

Unfortunately, not.

At our institution, only Admins can copy whole courses, since most of our academic courses and enrollments are created via SIS and have one of our Templates/pages/modules applied. And only Admins can "reset" a course to clear all the contents of a course and place the current enrollments/roster in a brand-new course "shell" (basically just giving it a new Canvas course ID).

Then we have to remind instructors to copy past course content into this new course with either "Copy To" or "Import Select Content" (we now tell them to avoid Importing "All Content", or it'll cause the same messy, duplicated content issue when importing from multiple courses, thanks to the Templates).

Otherwise, we have to just manually delete extra/unneeded items.

reynlds

The course audit API endpoint contains information about the source course that was used when populating the target course with content (if any). If you can't identify the particular issue within the course content that is causing a failure, you could follow that trail back to an earlier version and use one of those.

adam_c_voyton

CidiLabs has a great product for this called TidyUp. I don't believe, however, there's anything built it to achieve this.

Jeff_F

I have a concern with "All Content" being the selected default. It is too easy to go with that and then you end up with a hot mess. I'd much prefer the default be 'Select Content' with "All Content" being selectable only with a warning or three about everything being imported from the source course.

Jeff_F

I have a suggestion that may help. Using two or more monitors, scan over Pages, then Assignments, etc. for what is desired in the problem course. And by doing so you are also identifying what is not desired. Unpublish what is not desired and add an 'x ' to the name of the items, be it a page, quiz, etc. This provides us with a visual indicator. I try to avoid deleting as an error in doing so may create a problem. You can always undelete but that is another step, etc.

Then on monitor two create a new course and begin the process to copy the source course using "Import Select Content". Copy everything without the 'x '.

If you have Canvas Data, another way to help you filter the wheat from the chaff is to look at the Settings page > Import Course Content for the dates of the prior imports to the sources course. Then list out course assets and include the created at date, the canvas id of the item, title, etc. When the created at date matches the import date then you have a reasonable indicator. This assumes that copied content id not desirable, which may not be the case. But then you have a date and can look at the page list using that date as a reference.

dbrace

I 💯% agree with this!

Ever since my institution realized (I believe it was August 2020) that the Canvas and Zoom LTI integration includes "Calendar Events" (which Zoom creates in a Canvas course when a Zoom meeting is created using the LTI integration) during an "All content" copy I have been a strong advocate for "Select specific content".

At the time, I reached out to Instructure Support and they pointed the finger at Zoom. I reached out to Zoom Support and they pointed the finger at Instructure.

-Doug

HeatherSaigo

Thank you for the suggestions. This sounds like what I would do if I could take the time to do it one course at a time. It's methodical and thorough. I wish we could host a Spring Cleaning workshop and have faculty in for some hands-on activities. I'll think about how we might be able to improve faculty DIY course hygiene. :-)

HeatherSaigo

Hi Adam! We do have TidyUP and I'm putting together a "how to," because it seems like most folks here don't use it. Cidi has a great user guide. 😁

HeatherSaigo

Hi reynlds! Thanks for the idea. We have not explored much of what we could do with the API but I'll keep it in mind. Happy Friday!

HeatherSaigo

@dbrace and @Jeff_F this seems like a wise suggestion! We have similar trouble with duplicated template material. If we can stop importing everything each time a course is reused, that would prevent a lot of clutter!

HeatherSaigo

@mae_case I appreciate your insights. I definitely think importing from existing courses more carefully is the way to go in the future. In the meantime, manual cleanup looks like the only way to proceed to de-junk cluttered courses. I was hoping for a bibbidy-bobbidy-Canvas solution. 🤣 Have a great weekend!

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