Canvas: Import Previous Canvas Course to a New Course

This article explains how to import an old course to a new course shell.

Importing Content From an Old Course to a New One

  1. Go to the new course.

  2. Click the Settings on the course menu.
    The settings button is located at the bottom of the course menu dropdown box.

  3. Click Import Course Content from the tool list on the right side column.
    List of options from top to bottom: Share to commons, student view, course statistics, course calendar, import course content circled, export course content, reset course content, validate links in course.

  4. Select Copy a Canvas Course from the Content Type menu.

  5. Select the old course from the Search for a course menu.

  6. Choose all content if you want to copy the entire old course over or select specific content to choose certain pieces of the old course to copy.

  7. Click Import. If you chose All Content wait until it says complete, and you are done. If you chose Select Specific Content, the option to Select Content will appear. Click that button and select which content from the old course you want.

Important Notes

  • If the course you are copying has "redirect" links in the side panel navigation that link to a Canvas page in that course, the links will not transfer over to the new course. You will need to add the page to the new course and recreate the link in the new course. For assistance, contact Teaching@rice.edu.
  • Be sure to check assignments and quizzes for any date changes that need to be made.
  • More info can be found in the Canvas Guides.

Kaltura: Importing Videos From a Previous Canvas Course

If your previous Canvas course used MediaCosmos (Ensemble) videos or Kaltura videos in Media Gallery, you can import them to your current course’s Media Gallery. A Media Gallery does not get copied when copying other Canvas content using the Canvas Course Import Tool. 

Follow the directions below to import old videos into your current course.

  1. Optional: If you want to preview the videos in a previous Canvas course’s Media Gallery, in your Global Navigation, click on Courses and select the course. You may have to click on All Courses in the Courses List to find the course. Videos that were migrated from the previous video system are in Canvas courses that start with “Kaltura -.” After clicking on the course name, then click on Media Gallery from the Course Navigation Menu.
  2. Go to your new Canvas course where you want to import an existing Media Gallery. If you don’t see My Media and Media Gallery in your Course Navigation Menu on the left, enable it by going to Settings. Click on Navigation, drag-and-drop My Media and Media Gallery up to the visible section of the course navigation and click on the Save button.
  3. From the Course Navigation Menu on the left, click on Media Gallery.
  4. Import videos from another Canvas course to your current Canvas course by clicking on Channel Actions. Click Import or the Click Here import link.
    Import Media Gallery
  5. Select the Media Gallery that you want to import and click Import.
  6. The two-cog icon indicates that the import is still in progress.
    The two-cog icon is located at the top of the page.
  7. You will get a notification when the import has completed.
  8. You can only import an entire Media Gallery, so if you want to remove any videos from your Media Gallery, go to Media Gallery and click on the Remove icon next to the video you want to remove.
  9. You may import additional Media Galleries from other Canvas courses if needed.