Archiving Sub-Accounts

Question

Hi there.  This question is mainly for Canvas administrators:

I'm curious how other schools do this.  We have almost 60 different sub-accounts in Canvas that separate out the different program areas that we have.  I've gone through each sub-account to determine the last semester there were courses offered in it.  For example, our "Animation & Digital Media" sub-account had courses last offered in the Fall 2023 semester.  For cases like this, I am thinking of adding the word "Archived" to it since it is no longer used.  Do any of you do anything similar when programs have ended at your school?  Looking for recommendations and ideas.  Thanks!

JasonSimmons · Answer

Hi Chris - many institutions are leveraging Canvas Archiving, which is offered by Instructure and powered by K16 Solutions. Take a look:

https://www.instructure.com/services/canvas-archiving

Chris · Answer

Hi @Chris_Hofer,

We only have subaccounts down to the college level here, which is really just because of the structure of our programs and degrees (a single course can be part of many different programs/degrees).

We do have one school account that is no longer used since it was renamed to a college and got a new SIS id as well.  We're just letting that one account "chill" until it is officially gone from our SIS just to make sure no weird problems arise.  At that point (or after our 7 year retention policy for courses, whichever comes last), we'll end up deleting the account.

Speaking of SIS, the main thing I wanted to say here is that before any renaming, you should check how your SIS integration (or file feed, however you want to frame that process) works.  The way ours is coded, if I renamed any sis-based accounts, they'd get renamed back to the sis name within a few hours, meaning this would be a futile task here.  It may be totally different for you or others, but I thought I'd mention it.

-Chris

Greg · Answer

Hi Chris, when we set up Canvas we created sub-accounts for each of our academic disciplines but took the list from our district-wide SIS system, which means that each college sub-account has discipline sub-accounts that have always been empty since not every college offers every discipline. It hasn't been a problem for us and the discipline sub-accounts have mostly been ignored. Our sysadmins generally don't do third-party tools at that level. I do use them for global announcements that are discipline specific.

One challenge that has occurred is when new disciplines are created or old ones renamed. If our sysadmins don't know, that has led to problems with course creation and enrollment via SIS.