Note: All attachments associated with unprotected course cartridges are copied; protected cartridge content will not be copied.
The Copy Files to CS tool enables Administrators to copy content from a course in the Blackboard Learning System to a folder in the Content Collection. For example, if an Instructor has added files to a course, these files may be copied to the Content Collection using this tool. Items that are added to the Content Collection may be used in new courses, shared with other users, and added to Portfolios.
This tool is meant for adding new content to the Content Collection; it does not detect Content Collection items that have been added to a course or make any changes to the course.
Follow these steps to open the Copy Files to CS page.
Open the Administrator Panel.
Select Copy Files to CS under Courses. The Copy Files to CS page will appear.
The fields below appear on the Copy Links to CS page.
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Field |
Description |
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Select a Course |
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Source Course ID |
Enter a Course ID or click Browse to search for a course. Files will be copied from this source course to the Content Collection. |
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Select Destination (appears after Submit selected for Source Course) |
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Content Areas |
Select the check boxes for those areas that will be copied. In each area selected, attached files will be copied to the Content Collection.
The Administrator may copy content to any folder in the Content Collection. |
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Select Destination |
This field defaults to the location of the course folder in Course Content in the Content Collection. The path to a different folder may be entered. |
The Copy Files to CS tool may be run on the same course multiple times. This may be helpful in the following situations
Too much or too little content was selected to copy and a clean copy is needed.
If files were copied at the beginning of the term, the process may need to be run at the end of the term to copy additional files that have been uploaded.
Each time this tool is run, a new set of folders appears in the Content Collection. If the content is copied to the same area, for example Course Content, the Copied Content folder is appended with the number of the copy. For example, the folder created after the tool is run a second time is named ‘Course ID’ Copied Content (2).
The Copy Files to CS tool copies files that have been attached to course Content Areas. These files are originally added the course through the File to Attach option available on specific pages in the application or the third row action buttons in the Text Box Editor.
The Copy Files to CS tool copies items attached to the following:
Content folders
Content items
Course links
Assignments
Instructions
External links
Learning units
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Note: All attachments associated with unprotected course cartridges are copied; protected cartridge content will not be copied. |
Attachments added to the following areas of a course are NOT added to the Content Collection through the Copy files to CS tool
Attachments added to any Assessment areas (this includes Tests, Surveys and Question Pools)
Attachments added to Discussion Board messages, including Group Discussion Board messages
Files uploaded to the Digital Drop Box by Instructors
Items added to the Grade Assignment page by the Instructor are not copied. These items include comments for a specific user and are sent when the Assignment is graded. (Items added to the Add Assignment page by an Instructor are copied)
Student files added to a course are also not copied, this includes
Files uploaded to the Digital Drop Box by users
Files uploaded by users to Assignments
All files copied to the Content Collection are stored in the destination folder selected on the Select Areas to Extract page. All of the content from the course is stored in a folder with the following naming convention: ‘Course ID’ Copied Content. The structure of files within Copied Content will mimic the structure of the files in the course.
Example:
The copy from History100 included Course Documents and Course Information.
Course Documents folder contained:
A course item with the file Syllabus.doc attached
A course folder named Chapter One (no items attached to the folder)
In the Chapter One folder - A course item with the file WeekOne.doc attached
Course Information folder contained:
A course item with the file CourseOverview.doc attached
The structure of files within the Content Collection will be as follows
>History 100 folder
>History100 Copied Content folder
>Course Documents folder
>Syllabus.doc
>Chapter One folder
>WeekOne.doc
>Course Information folder
>CourseOverview.doc
There are a few cases where copied content receives special treatment in the Content Collection
Content uploaded to the Blackboard Learning System as package files (for example, zip files) where the user selected to unpackage this file are copied to the Content Collection in the zip file format with the unpackaged items under a folder with the following format: dir_fileattachmentname.fileextension. For example, a file called “unzipme.zip” is unpackaged at the root of the Course Information folder. The Content Collection will have both the unpackage.zip file at the root of the Course Information folder and also dir_unzipme.zip that contains the contents of the original file.
All files uploaded through the Text Box Editor are copied to individual subfolders named embedded(unique#). This is also true for files uploaded through the Text field when the Text Box Editor is not available.
When an HTML file that contains refrences to images is uploaded, the user is prompted to upload the images. These are “missing images”. Missing images are copied to a folder with the following format: dir_fileattachmentname.fileextension.
All files uploaded through the Text Box Editor are copied to individual subfolders named embedded(unique#). This is also true for files uploaded through the Text field when the Text Box Editor is not available.
When an HTML file that contains refrences to images is uploaded, the user is prompted to upload the images. These are “missing images”. Missing images are copied to a folder with the following format: dir_fileattachmentname.fileextension.
The Content Collection does not allow a folder to contain multiple files with the same name; this type of duplication is permitted within courses in the Blackboard Learning System.
When files and folders with the same name are copied to the same folder in the Content Collection, the names will be appended with a number. For example, if two files named Syllabus.doc are copied to the same folder, they will appear as Syllabus.doc and Syllabus1.doc.