What is TidyUP?
TidyUP allows you to scan your Canvas course for unpublished pages, outdated content, and empty folders, and delete them from your Canvas course. TidyUP is an LTI tool that appears in the left hand navigation of Canvas courses and is only made available to course instructors.
Why TidyUP?
When a course is copied semester after semester, old content and files pile up. Using TidyUP helps in the following ways:
- Accessibility –
- used in conjunction with other accessibility tools (e.g., Ally Accessibility Checker), increases automatically the accessibility of your course;
- helps Disability Resources staff know which files in your Canvas site are active and in use, so that they can focus their attention on the files students need;
- helps neurodiverse students who have difficulty navigating Canvas content when the site is cluttered with unnecessary files; and
- makes your Canvas content more usable and clear for all students.
- Easy organization - quickly identifies what’s current in your course and what's no longer in use.
How to Use TidyUP?
Watch the video "TidyUP Your Canvas" (below) to see step by step instructions for using TidyUP, or review the instructions below.
Instructions for using TidyUP
- Log in to your Canvas course site, and navigate to "Settings" in the lefthand vertical navigation.
- In Settings, click "Navigation" on the top horizontal menu see the list of features to "enable" in your Canvas site.
- Scroll down to find "TidyUP" in the list, click the three dots and select "+Enable" to actually enable. Then, scroll to the bottom and click "Save".
- Once enabled, TidyUP will show up on the lefthand vertical navigation in the instructor (this feature does not show in the student view).
- TidyUP scans your course for all files, content pages, assignments, etc. and categorizes them in three sections (files, folders, and content), so that you will be able to see and take action on ways to tidy up your courses
- You'll have the ability to sort and filter the different sections, allowing you to narrow down your search for a specific type of file if you'd like.
Quirks about TidyUP
- Available in all Canvas sites IF you enable it in the navigation -- it's available to be added (and you do not need a Canvas admin to do so), but isn't added automatically.
- It's a tool that gives you the power to eliminate items, so do back up your files with the TidyUP backup feature before you delete anything.
- If you rename an image, the image will be still be accessible where linked even if the file name changes. Not the same with pages though.