Administrators add large numbers of courses from the Batch Create Courses page. Using a batch file, courses are entered into the system quickly and without having to go through the Create Course page to add each course.
Note: If using a batch file created for a previous version of Blackboard Learning System, verify that the fields are in the correct order for the current version. If necessary, rearrange the fields before processing the batch file.
Click Batch Create Courses from the Courses section of the System Control Panel.
The table below details the entry fields on the Batch Create Courses page.
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Field |
Description | |
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File Upload |
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File Location: |
Enter the location of the batch course file. Or, click Browse to open up the file directory then locate and select the file. The field will populate with the path to the selected file. |
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File Delimiter: |
Select the file delimiter used in the batch course file. If Automatic is selected, the batch file will be analyzed and the delimiter determined based on the frequency of that character in the file. |
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Default Button Style: |
Select a default button style from the drop-down list. This style will appear in all courses that do not have a button style in their record. |
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Batch files are .delimited files holding large quantities of new courses to upload to the system. Batch files cannot contain any course content other than one announcement.
Batch course files must contain a Course ID and Course Name, and may also contain a Course Description, Button Style, and Initial Announcement, appearing in the following format:
“Course_ID”,”Course name”,”Course Description”,”Button_Style”, ”announcement”, “announcement title”
The following rules apply to batch course files:
· Fields must be enclosed in double quotes.
Example: “Eng_201”
· Each field must be separated with a delimiter. Commas, colons, or tabs may be used, however, you may not use more than one as a delimiter in a batch file.
Example: “Eng_201”,”English Literature”
· Each record must be separated by a hard return.
Example: Eng_201”,”English Literature”
”ENG_202”,“Transcendentalist Works”
· Each batch file should not exceed 500 records due to time out restrictions associated with most browsers.
The following special characters should never be used in an attribute such as a User Name, password, database user, Course ID, and so forth.
%&#<>=+
These characters are only safe to use when adding content into a text box, such as adding the description for a course.
When creating attributes a good rule to follow is to only use alphanumeric characters, underscores, dots, and dashes (do not use spaces!).