Import a Canvas Course into ProfDesk (.imscc)

Four steps, about fifteen minutes

Most of that is Canvas building the export file in the background. The part you actually sit through is short.

1

Export from Canvas

Settings → Export Course Content → Course. Canvas builds a .imscc file and notifies you when it is ready. No admin help needed.

2

Upload it here

Create a free ProfDesk account and start a course from a Canvas import. Archives up to 1000 MB are accepted.

3

Review before anything is written

You get a checklist of every module, page, file, quiz, assignment and rubric found, plus a storage meter. Untick anything you do not want.

4

Import, then read the report

ProfDesk creates the course and uploads your files, then tells you exactly what was created and what it could not map.

What comes across

Canvas exports in the IMS Common Cartridge format, which is a documented standard rather than a proprietary blob. That is what makes a faithful import possible at all.

In Canvas	Becomes in ProfDesk
Modules	Learning modules, keeping your original item order, indentation and published/unpublished state.
Pages & Wiki	Pages with their formatting and images intact. Links between pages are rewritten to point at the imported copies.Links Canvas cannot resolve are downgraded to plain links rather than left broken.
Files	Course files in your ProfDesk storage, served through the same access control as anything else you upload.Counts against your 500 MB (Free) or 10 GB (Pro) quota. You see the total before you commit.
Quizzes	Working quizzes with questions, options and correct answers, plus time limit, allowed attempts, shuffle and the multiple-attempt scoring rule.Included in the course export, so there is no separate quiz import to run. Imported as drafts so you review before students see them. Canvas equation images are converted to real maths.
Assignments	Assessments carrying the instructions, points and due date, set up to take one submission for the whole assessment. Assignment groups become assessment categories.
Rubrics	ProfDesk rubrics with their criteria and rating levels, re-attached to the assignment they belonged to.
Outcomes	Course learning outcomes (CLOs), with titles, descriptions and mastery thresholds preserved.Optional. Outcomes stay switched off unless you choose to import them.
Announcements & discussions	Announcements and discussion topics, kept as separate surfaces rather than merged into one list.
Prerequisites & requirements	Module prerequisites and completion requirements.Imported on every plan. Enforcement of sequencing is a Pro feature, so on Free the rules are stored but inactive.
Question banks	Reusable question banks, so your Canvas question pools stay reusable here.

What does not come across, and why

Being straight about this up front is more useful than discovering it halfway through a semester.

You keep

Everything you built. The teaching material is the part that took you months.

Course structure and sequencing
Written content, slides, PDFs and images
Question banks and quiz settings
Rubrics and outcome definitions

You leave behind

Mostly things a Canvas export does not contain in the first place.

Student submissions and grades. Canvas does not put them in the export, and importing another institution's student records into a personal account would be the wrong thing to do with that data.
Enrolments. Your students join your ProfDesk course with a join code, so the roster is yours rather than an institution's.
Automatic late penalties. Your due dates come across, but ProfDesk does not deduct marks for lateness on its own yet. The import tells you when a course had that rule rather than dropping it quietly.
External apps. Tools your school plugged into Canvas, such as Turnitin, lecture capture, or a publisher's homework site, sign in through the institution's own Canvas account. That sign-in cannot be handed to a personal ProfDesk course, so those links stay behind. Everything you wrote yourself still comes with you.

Choose the Course export, not the Quiz export

Canvas offers both, and the difference matters. A Course export produces the .imscc file and already contains your quizzes alongside everything else, so there is no separate quiz import to run afterwards. A Quiz export produces a .zip holding quizzes only. It is useful if quizzes are genuinely all you want to move, but it will not bring your modules, pages, files or rubrics.

Questions teachers ask before switching

Mostly about whether this is reversible. It is. Nothing you do here changes Canvas.

Does importing change or delete my Canvas course?

No. You upload a copy of an export file that Canvas generates for you. ProfDesk only ever reads that file. Your Canvas course, its students and its grades are untouched, and you can keep teaching in Canvas while you evaluate ProfDesk.

Which Canvas export do I need?

The Course export, which produces an .imscc file. That single file already contains your quizzes alongside your modules, pages, files, assignments and rubrics, so there is nothing else to import afterwards. Canvas also offers a Quiz export, but that produces a .zip holding quizzes only. It is useful if quizzes are genuinely all you want to move, but not for a whole course.

Do I need an administrator to export my Canvas course?

No. Exporting a course is a standard teacher permission in Canvas. You generate the file yourself from Settings, with no help from institutional IT. That matters if you are on a Free-for-Teacher account or are leaving an institution.

Do student grades and submissions come across?

No, and this is deliberate rather than a limitation. A Canvas course export does not contain student submissions or gradebook data in the first place, and importing another institution's student records into a personal account would be the wrong thing to do with that data. You bring your teaching material; your students enrol fresh with a join code.

What size course can I import?

Course archives up to 1000 MB are accepted on both the Free and Pro plans. Most courses are far smaller; a typical semester course with slides and PDFs is around 5 MB. The files inside your import count against your storage quota (500 MB on Free, 10 GB on Pro), but the archive itself does not.

Are my Canvas quizzes imported as real quizzes?

Yes, and they arrive in the same .imscc file as the rest of the course. Canvas stores quizzes in the QTI standard, and ProfDesk reads them into working quizzes with their questions, options and correct answers, plus the original settings: time limit, allowed attempts, shuffle, and the scoring rule for multiple attempts. Imported quizzes arrive as drafts so you can review them before students see anything.

What happens to content ProfDesk cannot map?

It is reported, never silently dropped. The import finishes with a report listing what was created and what was skipped, grouped by reason, so you know exactly what to check rather than discovering a gap mid-semester.

Can I import into an existing ProfDesk course?

A full course import always creates a new ProfDesk course, so it can never overwrite work you have already done. Quiz imports are different: those go into a course you choose.

Import your Canvas course into ProfDesk