Example Issues:

A student's data is deleted from a course space when the student's enrollment is deleted or moved to another course space.

A Canvas course space is deleted when the primary section of a combined section is changed.

Background:

Student data in a course is intrinsically tied to the student's enrollment in that course. Student enrollment is fed directly from myWSU, and when changes are made in myWSU the changes are included in the next data sync with Canvas.  Assignment submissions belong to the course space where they were submitted, and the assignment submissions do not follow the student, so if a student is no longer enrolled in a course space, the submissions no longer exist.

Merged and Combined courses have a primary section identified in myWSU on the pages Identify Combined Sections and Maintain LMS Course Space. If the primary section is changed, a new course space will be created in Canvas, When this happens, content and submissions do not move into the new course space and become inaccessible to instructors and students.

If a section of a course that was previously sent to Canvas is merged or combined with another course as the primary section, the primary section will not inherit the content or submissions from the original course. While we do not delete course spaces from Canvas, the original course becomes inaccessible to instructors and students

Options:

If the change is foreseeable, the instructor can export the gradebook and download submissions in advance of the change in enrollment, with caveats:

  • There is no way to move a submission from one course space to another.
  • Student submissions cannot be made on their behalf by an instructor.

If the student was to be re-enrolled in the original course space, everything should re-populate and the instructor could access content in the gradebook.