Moving courses between accounts in bulk

[steve_shishani]

I'm trying to move multiple courses, around 2000, some with enrollments, from the root account to a sub-account under the root. I'm aware of the process for moving one course at a time, but that won't work for our use case. I'm wondering if there is a way to do this using SIS imports or scripts.

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @steve_shishani,

If your accounts all have sis_ids, you can pretty easily move things around by using the sis import with a courses csv file.  I usually start by doing an sis export report, which will give you a courses file to work from.  Change the account for each course to the desired one, then save and upload the CSV and everything should properly get moved.

-Chris

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @steve_shishani I would recommend having a discussion with your Canvas Success Manager; they ought to be able to support this for you. My instincts are that the directory structure is somehow 'virtual' and it should be possible to relocate the courses whilst maintaining their original Canvas IDs.

Where you may get issues is if you have middleware managing the student Information system data transfer to Canvas; there may be a risk of disassociating the sis_data with the target course or directory ....

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @steve_shishani,

If your accounts all have sis_ids, you can pretty easily move things around by using the sis import with a courses csv file.  I usually start by doing an sis export report, which will give you a courses file to work from.  Change the account for each course to the desired one, then save and upload the CSV and everything should properly get moved.

-Chris

[steve_shishani]

Hi @chriscas . Unfortunately, the courses I'm trying to remap to a sub-account don't have course-id's assigned. So, I'm guessing I would have to assign course IDs first, which, by the way, is not possible using the change-sis-id method.

[ChristopherMcA · Accepted solution]

G'day @steve_shishani , yes - you would need to use the Canvas API to attach a SIS COURSE ID to the course.

https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/courses.html#method.courses.update

Specifically the course[sis_course_id] parameter

[steve_shishani]

Thank you, Chris! Your quick response is much appreciated.

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @steve_shishani I would recommend having a discussion with your Canvas Success Manager; they ought to be able to support this for you. My instincts are that the directory structure is somehow 'virtual' and it should be possible to relocate the courses whilst maintaining their original Canvas IDs.

Where you may get issues is if you have middleware managing the student Information system data transfer to Canvas; there may be a risk of disassociating the sis_data with the target course or directory ....

[steve_shishani]

Thank you @paul_fynn ! I will try that first.