Canvas Commons
Canvas Commons
Canvas Commons Quick Start
NOTE: This page offers a quick look at the use and purpose of Canvas Commons.
Be sure to refer to the Canvas Commons Guide and Policy document for the latest information.
What is Canvas Commons? (on Canvas Community) Canvas Commons (referred to as Commons) is a learning object repository that enables instructors to find, import, and share course content and resources from within the Canvas system. More documentation is provided by Canvas:
- How do I access and use Commons? (on Canvas Community)
- Commons Overview (on Canvas Community)
What are the features of Commons?
- Sharing Canvas courses. This is similar to making an export of your course and then importing it into another course. Most of your course’s content and settings, excluding Kaltura content (lectures and external videos housed in Kaltura), is available for sharing.
- Please note that when uploading full Canvas courses into Commons that voiceover lectures and media content stored in Kaltura (accessed through the Media Gallery or My Media in Canvas) are not available for sharing.
- Sharing learning objects (portions) from a course. For example, you can develop a single assignment and share just that assignment in the Commons.
- In both cases, the receiving course does not have to be blank. If it has existing content, the imported content will be added to the existing course content.
- Courses and learning objects can only be uploaded from courses that are currently active. Once a course is no longer accessible as an active course in Canvas, content will not be available to upload into Commons.
Benefits of Commons
- Sharing content using Commons does not require administrative intervention. Course instructors may freely create learning objects in the Commons and share with their fellow instructors.
- Commons supports versioning. Instructors may make updates to their learning objects and then post the update to the Commons and make a “version note” about the changes. When other instructors visit the Commons, if an update is made to a learning object they previously imported, they will receive notification of the update.
- Commons supports limiting shared repositories of objects to groups. For example, instructors of a department may only wish to share their learning objects with the members of the department.
Limitations of Commons
Commons does not support incremental updates of imported content without overwrite. For example, Professor A creates a module with several Pages to the Commons. Professor B imports the module and then modifies some of the pages. Professor A then creates an updated version of your module and shares the update in the Commons. If/when Professor B downloads the update, it will overwrite their modifications and they will lose any custom changes previously made.
- Quick Tip - If you wish to use content from Commons but do not want the content to be subject to any overwrites or updates, download the content from Commons, duplicate (make a copy of) the content in your course in Canvas, and then remove the initial download from your course. The new content will not be subject to incremental updates.
How it Works
- How do I preview resources in the Commons?
- How do I import and view a Commons resource in Canvas?
- How do I share a resource to Commons?
- How do I share a course to Commons?
- Hyflex or Traditional-Remote courses with multiple sections of the same course that want consistency
- Rowan Core modules/assessments that need to be shared or created
- Policy