You may have noticed a new exclamation mark icon appearing on your Canvas dashboard for some or all of your courses. This is Canvas reminding you that you haven’t backed up your course. If you click the icon, you’ll see two options: download a backup of the entire course or download your gradebook, which includes student grades. You can also dismiss the reminder for seven days, although it will reappear after that. So, what should you do? Well, that depends on your preferences and what you want to keep a separate copy of.

Downloading an entire course creates a Canvas course export file. Keep in mind, though, that this file is designed to be used in Canvas, so it isn’t particularly helpful if Canvas itself is unavailable. At NMC, we’re also committed to retaining at least five years of courses in Canvas, so downloading a separate copy of every course may not be necessary for everyone. The other option is to download your student grades as a CSV file, which you can open in a spreadsheet program like Excel. This is a relatively quick and easy way to keep a separate record of your gradebook and might be of use to you when imputing final grades.

Personally, I wouldn’t recommend treating this reminder as a reason to back up every course and gradebook every seven days. However, downloading your grades periodically may be worthwhile, depending on your needs and preferences. As for full course backups, that’s a decision I’ll leave up to you. 

Watch the video to learn how to do it!