Restore and recover course content in Canvas
When changes in course content go wrong, courses accidently gets reset or course materials are deleted, there are ways to restore and undo changes in Canvas. You can do a lot yourself, but more complicated recoveries require the involvement of the IT support.
When working in Canvas you sometimes change content in ways you regret and wish you can restore. Most of the times you can do it on your own, but sometimes you need to contact IT.
Note! Not everything can be restored, but the sooner you try any of these steps or contact IT, the higher are your chances.
Restoring content on your own
Most changes to course content can be restored on your own, in one of the following ways:
- Restore content Page from version history.
- Restore deleted content with "/undelete".
- Undo course content import.
Restore content Page from version history
If you accidentally change something on a content page and save the changes, what should you do? Luckily, Content Pages in Canvas have version history. You can restore older, saved versions of the page by selecting the options button and choosing "View Page History". Changes which has not been saved can't be restored.
For more details: How do I view the history of a page in a course? (Canvas Community) .
Restore deleted content with "/undelete"
Sometimes one accidentally deletes an entire Canvas Page, Assignment, Quiz, or file. Unlike Pages, there’s no version history for Courses. So in this case, you won’t be able to restore to a previous version because the page does not exist in your course anymore. But there’s still a solution: you can “undelete” any item you’ve accidentally deleted to restore it in your course.
To “undelete” something, you will need to go to the homepage of your course and add “/undelete” after the course URL. For example, if your course homepage URL is:
canvas.kth.se/courses/1234
then navigate to:
canvas.kth.se/courses/1234/undelete
There you will see a list of items that you recently deleted. Choose the item you’d like to restore to your course, then click on “Restore.” Go back to your course page and you should see that the item has reappeared in your course.
Please note that the number of items available to restore is based on when you deleted them. If you don’t see the item on the list, you’ll need to contact it-support@kth.se , who will work with Canvas/Instructure to have it restored for you.
Undo course content import
If you wanted to import Course Content from another course but selected the incorrect one, your course is now full of unwanted data. Unfortunately, if you import the wrong content into a course, or import content into the wrong course, you must manually delete and recreate the items as necessary.
If the damage is significant and you need to re-do the entire course, contact it-support@kth.se and they will reach out to Canvas/Instructure to have it restored for you if possible.
Restoring with help from IT
Major changes, like a course reset, needs to involve IT-support.
Recover a course that has been reset
If you reset a course that wasn't supposed to be reset there’s a good chance IT can undo that mistake. Reach out to it-support@kth.se as soon as possible with the following information:
- your course name
- your course offering.
If you have a link to the course saved somewhere (for example in your browsing history) and include it when you contact IT, they will be able to process your ticket even quicker.
Other questions about recovery and restoration
If you couldn't restore your course with the help on this page, please reach out to it-support@kth.se . They will relay the request to Canvas/Instructure, and hopefully your problem will be solved.