My students already have an account from last year. How will they be added to my new class if I import from an integration such as Google Classroom or Clever?

Students' CommonLit accounts continue to exist in the system after they have been removed from a teacher's class or their previous teacher’s class has been archived. The process for adding students with existing accounts to a class depends on the integration.

Importing from Google Classroom

If you import a class from Google Classroom, CommonLit will check to see if there is an existing account with the information being provided from Google Classroom. If there is an existing student account in CommonLit with matching Google Classroom credentials or a matching Gmail address, CommonLit will find the existing student account and pull that student’s account into your class. If there is no existing student account with matching Google Classroom credentials or a matching Gmail address, CommonLit will automatically create a new account for that student.

Importing from Canvas

If you import a class from Canvas, CommonLit will check if there is an existing account with the same Canvas credentials and/or email. If there is an existing student account with the same email and Canvas credentials as a student in the Canvas course, CommonLit will pull that student into your class. If there is an existing student account with either a matching email or matching Canvas credentials, CommonLit will add the missing information to the student’s account. Finally, if there is no existing student account with either a matching email or Canvas credentials, CommonLit will automatically create a new account for that student.

Importing from Clever

When classes are imported from Clever, CommonLit will check to see if there is an existing account with the email on the student’s Clever account. If there is an existing student account with the same email as their Clever account, CommonLit will add the student’s Clever credentials to their existing CommonLit account and pull that student into your class. If there is no existing student account with a matching email, CommonLit will automatically create a new account for that student.

Importing from ClassLink

When classes are imported from ClassLink, CommonLit will create student accounts for each student shared by ClassLink. CommonLit will also check to see if there is an existing account with an email address that matches the email shared by ClassLink for a student. If there is a match, CommonLit will merge the two accounts.


If your students have existing accounts and you would like them to join your manually created class, please see this FAQ: My students already have an account from last year. How do they join my manually created class this year?