Canvas

What is happening?

OSU will begin archiving Canvas course sites that are three+ years old. The archiving process will run once a year. Only credit-bearing course sites will be archived. Studio sites and Professional and Continuing Education course sites will not be archived.

Why are you archiving courses?

Since Oregon State University has been using Canvas for about five years, the Past Enrollments list on the All Courses page in Canvas is becoming unmanageably long for many faculty. Additionally, course selection tool functionality (e.g., during the Course Import process) is negatively impacted when faculty have too many past-term courses on the list. Archiving courses will help alleviate these issues.

When will courses be archived?

To allow for sufficient communication to faculty, the first archiving process of AY 2018-2019 and older courses will occur at the end of Summer 2021 courses during the second week of September.

Subsequently, we will run the archive process near the end of each AY on the first Monday of June to archive the next AY in sequence. See the table below for more information. Faculty will always have access to the data from the two most recent AYs.

Who will be impacted?

People with roles that allow them to edit a course (listed below) will notice that courses from AY 2018-2019 and older no longer appear on their All Courses page. These courses will also not appear as options in any course selection tools in Canvas, such as during the import course content process. Courses for AY 2019-2020 and newer will remain as they are.

List of affected Canvas roles: Teacher, TA, CanvasTA, Grader, Learning Assistant, Designer, and Ecampus Support

What will happen to student access to archived courses?

Student access to Canvas courses will not be affected by the archiving process. Default student access settings include read-only access to course content (excluding quizzes), submissions and instructor feedback. If an instructor adjusted course settings to restrict student access to the course after the end date, those settings will not be changed during the archiving process.

By default, students have access to past term course content as long as their ONID account is active. Faculty can override the default course-level settings and restrict student access to their past-term course.

What will happen to the course content, student submissions and grades when the course is archived?

Archived course sites are not deleted or removed. Everything in the course site - all course content, quizzes, student submissions, grades, rubrics, assignment comments etc. - is preserved. Faculty can request access to archived sites - details below.

What if I still need access to an archived course?

Requests to restore access to archived courses can be submitted to Canvas@oregonstate.edu. Please provide the Canvas course information i.e., course designator and number, section number (if known), and term in your request. Any person with a role that allowed them to edit the course will have their access to the course restored. Restored courses will not be automatically archived again. A follow-up request to re-archive the course may be submitted, if desired.

How can I proactively save content from a course before it is archived?

If you aren’t planning on teaching the course again for a couple of years, you can request a Canvas studio site and import the content from the past-term course into the studio site. Studio sites are never archived and are a great way to create templates for your courses.

What is the full timeline of this process for the next three years and beyond?