How to Import Content from Canvas Commons
Canvas Commons is a sharing space where anyone at any Canvas institution around the world can contribute content they have created. It can be a bit overwhelming but you can use the filter and search tools to narrow the scope. The steps below will give you an overview of how to search and then import content from a shared resource.
| FINDING CONTENT IN CANVAS COMMONS |
The Commons Icon can be found on the left (black) navigation in Canvas. It looks like a "C" with an arrow. Clicking on this will immediately take you into Canvas Commons, which contains learning objects created in Canvas from all over the world. It's a lot. You can search this area, but for now let's look at ways to filter search results. Being by clicking on the Filter button.
After clicking on the Filter button, the filter menu will open. For Seattle University, Undergraduate and Graduate is checked by default but you can uncheck if you wish. You can also filter by type of object, so if you only want to find quizzes, you can do that. For now let's select just those resources created at Seattle University.
This will open up a list, which (at the time of writing) has 35 results contributed from Seattle University. You can click on any of these resources to explore what is in them. Let's start by clicking on Brian Fisher's MATH 2310.
| IMPORTING CONTENT FROM CANVAS COMMONS |
In the Preview tab you can peruse the contents of Brian's course. If you decide you would like to import all or just portions of his course, you can click on the Import/Download button.
Here you have two options. You can either import the entire course or you can import just certain items in the course. For the entire course you will use the Import into Course and for selected items you will use the Download function. Here are the steps for each:
1. Entire Course
If you want to import the entire course, Use the list that appears to find the course where you want the content imported into. Click the checkbox next to the name of the course. The Import into Course button will become clickable and all you have to do is click it and the import process will start.
2. Only Select Items from a Course
If you only want certain items from a course, you will click Download. This will download an imscc file onto your computer, wherever your downloads go. Locate the imscc file on your computer to make sure it has downloaded. Then click on Settings in the left navigation and find Import Course Content—either on the right, or sometimes below depending on the width of your screen. Click on Import Course Content.
In the Import Content window, select Canvas Course Export Package from the Content Type dropdown menu.
Browse for you .imscc file and then click Select specific content and then Import.
This is where it gets scary—but don't worry! It will appear that the entire course is being imported as you watch the progress bar and you may worry that you clicked the wrong option.
However, once the progress bar stops, the Select Content button will appear. Click this.
This will open up the Select Content window where you can click on the arrows to open everything within that content type. Note that in this case, if you simply clicked the check box next to quizzes you would get all 63 quizzes. If you only wanted select quizzes, you would click on the arrow to open all the quizzes. Once you have selected the content you want, click on Select Content and it will be imported into your course.