Template Courses

Templates are course sites that can be easily used to develop content for future courses or to prepare common content for shared courses.  Content in template courses can be imported directly into your other courses, published to Canvas Commons to be shared, or exported as an IMSCC file. It's important to note that Template courses should not be published or made accessible to students. This page will guide you through the steps to submit a request for a Template course that can be used for developing course content, which can later be quickly imported into your regular courses.

For a comparison of Blueprints and Templates please refer to Canvas Templating Options.

Requesting a Template Course

To request a new Template Course, follow these simple steps:

1. Visit the Template Request Form.
2. Fill out the required information on the form.
3. Submit the form.

Once your request is submitted, the Canvas team will review and process it accordingly. You will be notified once your Template Course is ready for use. Requests are typically processed within 48 hours.

Importing Content from a Template Course

Once you have a Template Course, you can easily import its content into your regular courses. Follow these steps to import content:

1. Access your regular course in Canvas.
2. In the course navigation menu, click on "Settings."
3. Click the "Import Course Content" button on the right-hand side.
4. Select "Copy a Canvas Course" from the Content Type dropdown.
5. In the "Search for a Course" field, enter the name or course ID of your Template Course.
6. Choose the Template Course from the search results.
7. Select the content you want to copy (e.g., assignments, discussions, files) and adjust the settings as needed.
8. Click the "Import" button.

Note: You must be a Teacher in both the source and destination courses in order to import content directly into your course.

Canvas will process the import request, and once completed, you'll find the content from the Template Course seamlessly integrated into your regular course.

For more detailed instructions and troubleshooting tips, refer to the official Canvas guide on How to Copy Content from Another Canvas Course.