Reset Your Canvas Course Content

Overview

From time to time, you may want to delete all of the content in a Canvas course site. This is most typically needed early in the course building process. For example, after importing content from another course, you may realize that you imported from the wrong course. The directions described below will delete all content from your course site, but leave the course roster intact.

Warning about Deleting All Course Content

WARNING: This step deletes all existing content from your course. Take steps to preserve any content you want to keep (for example, copy and paste to a Word doc, copy select course elements to a sandbox course, import the course into another empty shell, etc.) before proceeding. DO NOT complete these steps in a current term course that is currently in process!

Reset Course Content in a Canvas Course

Canvas Guide: How do I reset course content?

1. Navigate to the course with the content you wish to delete.

2. From the course navigation menu, click the Settings link.

Settings

3. In the sidebar, click the Reset Course Content link.

Reset Course Content

4. Click the Reset Course Content button.

A completely new course shell with a new ID (the number following “https://miracosta.instructure.com/courses/…”) will be generated. All users previously enrolled in the course will remain enrolled.

Made a Mistake?

If for some reason you reset your course and it was a mistake report it as soon as possible. We have Test and Beta instances of Canvas we may be able to refer to for the content and/or to restore the original course.

Contact Karen Turpin, Instructional Technology Specialist at kturpin@miracosta.edu or Canvas Faculty Support 24/7 at 1- 833-345-2890 for assistance.

Turnitin for Canvas LTI 1.3 (new standard)

MiraCosta College has an unlimited license to Turnitin, GradeMark, and Peer Review, and Turnitin is available within Canvas. No separate login or password is required for faculty or students. 

The primary difference between the two tools is that the Turnitin LTI 1.3 integration is best used if faculty prefer to use Turnitin for grading and feedback; the Turnitin Plagiarism Framework is preferred by faculty who want Turnitin for plagiarism prevention but like to use the Canvas grading and feedback tools.

Create a Turnitin LTI 1.3 Assignment in MCC Canvas:

  1. Click on Assignments from the course navigation menu.
  2. Click on the 3 Dots Assignment Settings button.
  3. Click on Turnitin in the menu.
Turnitin LTI 1.3 in MiraCosta College Canvas

Turnitin LTI 1.3 Resources


Testing a Turnitin Assignment with your MCC Sample Student

Turnitin is an LTI tool that is globally installed on our Canvas system. LTI tools are not native to Canvas so they will not work in the internal Canvas Student View. You must log off of Canvas, as an instructor, then log on with your MCC Sample Student account. Now you will be able to experience a Turnitin assignment within your Canvas course as a student.

Additional information

Turnitin Canvas Plagiarism Framework

Turnitin Plagiarism Framework is available within Canvas and offers a tighter integration between a Canvas assignment and Turnitin than the Turnitin 1.3 LTI Canvas integration. No separate login or password is required for faculty or students.

The primary difference between the two tools is that the Turnitin LTI 1.3 integration is best used if faculty prefer to use Turnitin for grading and feedback; the Turnitin Plagiarism Framework is preferred by faculty who want Turnitin for plagiarism prevention but like to use the Canvas grading and feedback tools.

MiraCosta College has an unlimited license to Turnitin, GradeMark, and Peer Review.

Turnitin Canvas Plagiarism Framework

Turnitin Plagiarism Framework Resources


Testing a Turnitin Assignment with your MCC Sample Student

Turnitin is an LTI tool that is globally installed on our Canvas system. LTI tools are not native to Canvas so they will not work in the internal Canvas Student View. You must log off of Canvas, as an instructor, then log on with your MCC Sample Student account. Now you will be able to experience a Turnitin assignment within your Canvas course as a student.

Additional information

Turnitin for Canvas LTI 1.1 (classic old standard)

We suggest you use LTI 1.3 for Canvas (New Standard). LTI 1.1 (Classic Old Standard) is still currently available, however we can not guarantee for how long.

MiraCosta College has an unlimited license to Turnitin, GradeMark, and Peer Review, and  Turnitin is available within Canvas. No separate login or password is required for faculty or students.  If you are starting out with Turnitin we suggest you either use the updated LTI 1.3 for Canvas (New Standard) or the Turnitin Canvas Plagiarism Framework integration.

The primary difference between the two tools is that the Turnitin LTI 1.3 integration is best used if faculty prefer to use Turnitin for grading and feedback; the Turnitin Plagiarism Framework is preferred by faculty who want Turnitin for plagiarism prevention but like to use the Canvas grading and feedback tools.

Turnitin LTI 1.1 (Classic Old Standard) in Canvas

Testing a Turnitin Assignment with your MCC Sample Student

Turnitin is an LTI tool that is globally installed on our Canvas system. LTI tools are not native to Canvas so they will not work in the internal Canvas Student View. You must log off of Canvas, as an instructor, then log on with your MCC Sample Student account. Now you will be able to experience a Turnitin assignment within your Canvas course as a student.

Additional information

Canvas End of Semester / Term

The following will help instructors understand how the end of semester is handled in Canvas, and how to update related Canvas course settings if necessary. By default, students who complete a class continue to have read-only access to the concluded class’s course materials, discussions, and grades. If you wish to restrict concluded class access, you must change the class settings before the end of the term, or get a Canvas administrator to help you after the end of the term.

Everything below applies to typical term-based Canvas classes. Canvas sandbox classes and Canvas shells used for organizations, departments, groups, etc. are not tied to any particular terms and thus remain available indefinitely.

Closing your Course

There is nothing you have to do to close your Canvas course; at the term end date (see below), your course will be set to Concluded status and moved onto the Past Enrollments course list for you and your students. By default you and your students will continue to have read-only access to the course.

Canvas Term End Dates

SemesterDateTime
Spring 2024June 612 am
Summer 2024August 2012 am
Fall 2024Dec 3112 am

Concluded Course Access

For both instructors and students, concluded courses can be found by clicking Courses in the main Canvas menu, then the All Courses link. Concluded courses are listed there under Past Enrollments. Concluded courses may not be moved back onto the Dashboard – they must be accessed in this way.

Instructors can perform the following actions with a concluded course

Instructors cannot perform the following actions within a concluded course (do these before the end of the term!)

  • Edit course content
  • Edit Grades
  • View/download Analytics
  • View/download Item Analysis within Quizzes
  • Send a message to the class within Canvas
  • Change class access settings
  • Change class navigation

Students can perform the following actions by default within a concluded course

  • View Grades
  • View course content
  • View Discussions and Assignments
  • Send a message to the instructor

Students cannot perform the following actions within a concluded course

  • View Quiz questions and answers
  • Submit discussions, assignments, quizzes, and other course activities

Restricting Students from Viewing Some or All of a Completed Course

As described above, by default in Canvas, students have ongoing read-only access to course content in Canvas after the term ends. This can be a great feature, allowing students to review key learning resources from previous semesters. If, however, you wish to limit this access, follow one of the methods below before the end of the term. (If you need to make these changes to a course that is already concluded, contact Karen Turpin for assistance at kturpin@miracosta.edu)

Method 1: Hide Course Navigation menu links

If an instructor would like to limit access to major areas of course content, one method is to hide Navigation menu links. Note that if Navigation menu links are hidden, the instructor will also be unable to access them after the course concludes. This may be appropriate if you would like to leave Grades available to students, yet close off certain course content. The instructor may copy the course into another course to regain access to hidden menu items.

How to hide Course Navigation menu links

  1. Click Settings in the Canvas course menu
  2. Click Navigation in the tabs at the top.
  3. Drag and drop the menu items from the top (viewable) area to the bottom (hidden) area or click the gear icon to the right of the menu item and select disable.
  4. Click the Save button.

Method 2: Hide select course content

For more fine-grained control, certain course content such as files, pages, modules, or module items (but not assignments or discussions where students have participated) may be unpublished. As with hidden Navigation menu links, unpublished items are also inaccessible to the instructor after the course concludes.

If you wish to hide course items where students have participated, such as discussions or assignments, you cannot unpublish those. But there is a trick: simply set the availability date to sometime far in the future.

These options may be useful if you want students to be able to access most course content, but have select content that you prefer not to be accessed/shared in the future. The instructor may copy the course into a current course to be able to revisit/reuse hidden content.

Method 3: Restrict students from accessing entire course after term end date

The term end date is the final date in the current semester as listed in the table above. If an instructor would prefer the entire course and its course materials not be visible to students after the term end date:

  1. Click Settings in the Canvas course menu.
  2. For Participation: Select Term (this should be selected by default)

3. Select the checkbox for ‘Restrict students from viewing course after term end date‘.

5. Click the Update Course Details button at the bottom of the settings page.

This option will completely remove the course from the student’s view in Past Enrollments after the end term date passes. Students will not see the course and will have no access to course materials or grades. Instructors will continue to be able to access the course in Past Enrollments.

Resolving Incompletes

If you have assigned a student an incomplete ‘I‘ grade for the semester, contact Karen Turpin at kturpin@miracosta.edu or as soon as the paperwork is complete with Admissions and Records. Karen will create a new Canvas course section based on the original course.  This new section will allow the student access to the course with the ability to submit work, and will give you access to grade the student’s work, for the time allowable by the Office of Admissions and Records.

Working with Concluded Courses to Build New Courses

As noted above, you may always export a concluded course for import back into Canvas (Text instructions), or use a concluded course as the source for copying into a new course (Text instructions | Video tutorial). If you wish to update the content of a concluded course for use in the future, but you do not have a current term course in which to do that, you may wish to request a Sandbox course to copy into and work with, since you cannot edit a concluded course directly.

Teaching a short course and/or need to close your course prior to the official term end date?

You can manually end your course by updating the course end date. This will disable the ability for students to submit any more work, and, if you select the setting enabling students to view the course after the end date, will move the course off of the students’ Canvas dashboard and into the Past Enrollments area. If you do not enable that access for students, the course will disappear from their Canvas altogether.

To change the Course Start and/or End Date

  1. Click Settings in the Canvas course menu.

2. For Participation: Select Course

3. Change the Course Start and End Dates to reflect when you want students to have full access to the course.

4. If desired, select the checkboxes for ‘Restrict students from viewing course before course start date’ and/or ‘Restrict students from viewing course after the course end date’.

In the example below, students will not be able to participate in the course, even if it is published, until Jan 16 at 12 pm. The students will no longer be able to participate in the course after May 30 at 12 pm and the course will not be available to students for viewing.

5. Click the Update Course Details button.

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