Moodle to Canvas
Moving a Moodle course to Canvas
Canvas gives you two routes. Its own Course Import tool can read a Moodle backup and rebuild it as Canvas pages, quizzes and discussions you can edit. Or the course can arrive as one SCORM package, played by Canvas’s SCORM tool and graded as an assignment.
Want to edit the course inside Canvas? Try the importer first. Want the course exactly as it was, tracked as one graded item? Use a SCORM package.
The two routes
Canvas’s Moodle importer
In your Canvas course: Settings, Import Course
Content, then choose Moodle 1.9/2.x .zip file as the
content type and select your .mbz.
It rebuilds the course in Canvas’s own tools: sections become modules, forums become discussions, quizzes become Canvas quizzes. Instructure notes that Moodle Lessons are not supported by the import, and how much of the rest survives depends on the course. Check the result page by page.
A SCORM package
Convert the backup, then in the course: SCORM in the course navigation, Upload, and choose how it is imported: a graded assignment, an ungraded assignment, or a page. That choice is permanent.
The course plays exactly as you previewed it. A graded import becomes an assignment worth 100 points by default, with the score in the gradebook.
Before you upload a SCORM package to Canvas
- SCORM has to be switched on. It is an app an administrator enables for your Canvas account. If there is no SCORM link in your course navigation, ask your Canvas admin.
- Not in test environments. Instructure says SCORM is not available in Canvas beta or test instances, so try it in your real one.
- Size. Some institutions report a 500 MB limit for SCORM uploads. A course with a lot of video can be larger than that.
- Pick the import type carefully. Graded, ungraded or page cannot be changed afterwards.
What a converted course sends Canvas
One package, one course. It reports one status for the whole course, one score out of 100 when the course has a quiz that counts, and where the learner stopped. It reports progress on every page change, and again when the learner closes it. A course with no quiz sends no score rather than a misleading zero.
Whatever route you take, test before you rely on it: upload one course, take it as a learner, and check that completion and the score arrive the way you expect.
Platform details checked against Instructure’s own documentation, September 2026. Menus move; if yours looks different, the names above are the ones to search for.