When a teacher copies a course using the "Copy this Course" button in the settings page for a course in a current or future term, the copied course remains attached to the old term. If teachers don't have permission to change their course's term, their new sandbox will automatically conclude at the end of that term.
Impact to Workflow:
- Copied courses are incorrectly associated with the previous term, causing them to conclude prematurely.
- Administrative staff must manually reassociate courses that were incorrectly copied.
- Disruption to the continuity of course materials and instructor access.
Case #09844068 establishes that this is currently the intended behavior of Canvas.
To address this, I propose modifying the course copy functionality to automatically associate the copied course with the Default Term, irrespective of the term of the original course when the instructor lacks permission to change the term.
Benefits of the Proposed Solution:
- Consistency: Automatically associating the copied course with the Default Term avoids unexpected sandbox conclusion.
- Administrative Efficiency: By automatically associating the copied course with the Default Term, this feature reduces the burden on administrative staff who currently need to manually reassociate courses with the correct term.
- Instructor Confidence: The proposed solution instills confidence in instructors, as they can trust that the copied course will seamlessly continue to be accessible without the need for manual intervention or additional permissions.
- Workflow Continuity: Ensuring that the copied course is associated with the Default Term allows instructors to focus on instructional tasks rather than dealing with term-related adjustments, leading to improved workflow continuity.
