The Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course page enables Instructors to copy content from one course into another they are teaching. Instructors can select areas, such as Announcements, Staff Information or Content areas to copy. Copy Course will add content to a course, but it will not remove existing content.
Follow these steps to locate the Copy Course Materials into a New Course page.
Step 1 Click Course Copy from the Course Control Panel.
Step 2 Click Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course from the Copy Course page.
Enter a Course ID for the destination course or click Browse to open a Search function in a separate window.
Please make sure that the new Course ID matches the naming convention used at the institution. Also, The Course ID should not have any spaces or characters other than numbers and letters, dash (-), underscore (_), and period (.). The Course ID must be unique and remain static. It cannot be modified.
Follow these steps to search for a course after selecting Browse:
Step 1 Select the Course ID, Instructor, or Title/Description option.
Step 2 In the text field, enter a Course ID, an Instructor name, or a string that appears in the Title or Description of the course. If this field is left blank, courses will be filtered only by the date created.
Step 3 Select the All Courses, Month, or Day option to define the list based on when courses were created (If Month is selected, courses that are returned will have been created in the previous 30 days. If Day is selected, courses that are returned will have been created in the last 24 hours).
Step 4 The search function will create a list of courses according to the search criteria. Courses will appear in a table format with each course listed in a separate row.
Step 5 Click Select in the same row as the desired course. The Search window will close and the selected course will appear in the Destination Course ID field on the Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course page.
Select the check boxes for each content area and tool in the course that should be copied into the existing course. The table below details what happens to each selectable option when the copy is performed.
Note: A Course Copy operation cannot be completed if the user does not select at least one of the following areas: Content, Staff Information or Settings. If none of these options is selected a warning will appear; the course may not be copied until this issue is resolved.
|
Course Material |
Behavior when copied |
|
Content |
Copies course materials, including uploaded files, Learning Units, links, and Course Cartridge content. Users may also select to include Course Information, Course documents, Assignments and External Links. |
|
Announcements |
All Announcements are copied to the new course. If Assessment links appear in Content Areas, then this option must be selected, or the link to the Assessment will be broken. |
|
Tests, Surveys, and Pools |
All Assessments and Surveys, including questions and options for deploying them are copied. All Pools are copied to the new course. |
|
Calendar |
All Calendar items are copied to the new course. |
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Collaboration Sessions |
Collaboration Sessions that have been created are copied. This includes the Session Name and the Tool used during the session. |
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Course Settings |
Some Course Settings will be copied. See Course Settings below for more information. |
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Group Settings |
Settings include the names of the Groups, the settings for tool availability, and the Discussion Board forum names. |
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Discussion Board |
Discussion Board forums, including the initial message in the Discussion Board, are copied to the new course. |
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Gradebook Items and Settings |
Items in the Gradebook, and their settings, such as type, categories, and display options, are copied to the new course. |
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Staff Information |
All Staff Information is copied to the new course. |
When Course Settings is selected, certain settings are copied to the existing course. These include the following:
· Course Entry Point
· Course Design
· Course Banner
· Blackboard Tools settings that do not exist are added. Existing settings are not overwritten.
· System Extension Tools settings that do not exist are added. Existing settings are not overwritten.
· Content Tools settings that do not exist are added. Existing settings are not overwritten.
The following settings are not copied as part of this operation:
· Course ID
· Course Name
· Course Description
· Course Availability
· Guest Access
· Observer Access
· Course Duration
· Enrollment Options
If Enrollment is selected, the list of users in the course will be copied.
User records in the course will not be copied. This includes the following:
· Gradebook Records
· Discussion Board messages (including Groups Discussion Board messages)
· Archived Discussion Board messages (including Groups Discussion Board messages)
· Drop Box files
· Assessment attempts
· Assignment submissions
· Course Statistics
· Collaboration session logs
· User Home pages
· The Electric Blackboard® entries
User records are only copied if the Copy Course with Users (Exact Copy) is selected.
When copying content and tools from one course to an existing course, the Course Menu must resolve itself in the destination course. The table below describes the how Course Menu items are resolved.
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If . . . |
then . . . |
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a Content Area in the source course does not exist in the destination course |
the area will be added to the Course Menu in the destination course. |
|
the Content Area in the source course and the Content Area in the destination course have the same name and are of the same type (for example, External Links, Staff Information, or content) |
the content from the source course will be added, but will not replace, the content in the area within the destination course. |
|
the Content Area in the source course and the Content Area in the destination course have the same name but are of different types |
the Content Area from the source course will be added to the destination course under a different name. The new name will append an incremental numeral to the name (for example, Course Materials will become Course Materials1). |
Links to parts of a course that are not included in the copy will break when the links appear in the destination course. For example, if there is a link to a Test in a content area and Assessments are not copied, the link to the test will break.
If the source course includes Course Cartridge content and the destination course does not have a Cartridge ID, the cartridge content will be copied to the destination course with the Cartridge ID assigned. This includes content that is copy protected.
If the destination course already has a Cartridge ID, neither the cartridge content nor the Cartridge ID will be copied from the source course to the destination course.