Working with the Copy Course Materials Feature
To display the Copy Course Materials feature, click the Copy Courses link in the left sidebar.
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The system displays the Copy Course Materials feature. Note that there are two main methods of copying materials—copying everything and copying selected materials only. The remainder of this chapter details these options.
When you copy “everything” from one context to another, you delete all content in the destination course and replace it with copied material from the source. Note the following:
The material copied includes everything listed under What Can You Copy? except for the initial posts in Forums threads. These are not copied.
The system copies all context-specific roles that have been defined, as well as the permissions associated with those roles (as configured on the Permissions tab within Context Manager).
All existing content in the destination context will be deleted. For example:
If the destination context contains more pages than the copied context, the extra pages will be deleted.
If a page in the destination context contains more features than the page being copied, the extra features will be deleted.
All pages and features with the same name as those in the source context will be replaced with copies from the source.
To copy everything:
After you’ve displayed the Copy Course Materials feature, as described in Navigate to the Copy Course Materials Feature, choose the context that you want to copy from. In the area labeled Step 1, make the following selections:
Use the first drop-down list to select the term of the desired source context. In response, the system populates the second drop-down list with the course sections that exist in that term.
Use the second drop-down list to pick a source context—the course section that you want to copy from.
In the area of the screen labeled Step 2, select the destination context. The list should include all contexts for course sections that you teach now or are scheduled to teach in the future. Note that you can select more than one course section by using the Shift or Control key.
In the area of the screen labeled Step 3, select the radio button labeled Everything.
In the box labeled Enable assignment linking under Step 3, take one of the following actions:
To enable assignment linking, leave the Enable assignment linking checkbox selected.
To disable assignment linking, click the Enable assignment linking checkbox to deselect it.
For more information on assignment linking, see Working with Linked Assignments.
In the area of the screen labeled Forums under Step 3, select one of the following options to determine how forum posts will be handled during the copy:
No Posts—Only categories and topics are copied; user-created post content is not.
Faculty—Any initial post in a thread made by a faculty member is copied.
All—The first post of every thread in the forums is copied.
In the Forums area, take one of the following actions:
To copy the role permissions for forum categories and topics from the source to the destination, leave the Maintain existing role permissions for each forum Category and Topic checkbox selected.
To ignore role permissions when copying, clear the Maintain existing role permissions for each forum Category and Topic checkbox by clicking it. This will result in undefined forum permissions in the destination course.
In the area of the screen labeled Step 4, select one of the following options:
Use source dates if applicable—With this default option selected, all future dates will be copied into the destination section exactly as they are in the source section, and dates that are in the past will be recalculated based on their distance from the destination course section’s start date. This is basically the way dates were copied in previous versions of eLearning, and it is also the way dates are handled when you copy a course via rich-template mapping. This setting works best when copying a course to another section of the same course within the same term. For more information, see "Use Source Dates if Applicable" Logic.
Roll them over to fit the destination term—If you select this option, all dates in the destination course section will be recalculated so that their distance from the destination term’s start date is the same as the distance between the source dates and the source term’s start date. For example, if an assignment is in a term that starts on January 1 and has a due date of January 15—a difference of 14 days—and it is copied into a term that starts on June 10, the new assignment's due date will be June 24. For more information, see "Roll Them Over to Fit the Destination Term" Logic.
Click Copy. If the Copy button is not enabled, it’s because you made a mistake in one of the earlier steps—such as choosing the same destination context as the one you are copying.
The system generates a pop-up window asking whether you are sure you want to copy the selected material. Bear in mind that the destination context you select will essentially be deleted and replaced with the materials you are copying.
Click OK.
The system displays a Please Wait pop-up window, then a screen that indicates that the materials were copied successfully.
Note
Depending on your site configuration, you may see an additional screen for adjusting dates for units and assignments once the copy completes. See Adjusting Dates for Copied Units and Assignments for more information.
If you don't want to copy all materials from a course, you can choose individual pages and features to copy.
This procedure also copies context-specific roles that have been established for the context. Whether or not that role’s permissions are copied varies depending on whether the content relevant to the permission is also copied.
As part of this process, you have the choice of two different copying methods. Note that this choice is relevant only if the destination context contains page(s) with the same name(s) as those in the source context. The two methods are:
Merge—This method does not overwrite any content in the destination context. For example, if the source context has a page with the same name as in the destination, the two pages are combined, with the additional features from the source simply added to the destination page. If a copied feature instance has the same name as an existing one, the system adds the word Imported to the name of the newly copied instance.
Overwrite—With this method, if the destination context has one or more pages of the same name as those you have selected to copy, the destination pages will be overwritten. Note that a page will be overwritten even if you select only one feature to copy from the source page—even in this case, the destination page will be completely overwritten with a new page that contains only that feature.
To copy selected materials:
After you’ve displayed the Copy Course Materials feature, as described in How Dates are Calculated for Copied Assignments, choose the context that you want to copy from by making the following selections in the area labeled Step 1:
Use the first drop-down list to select the term of the desired source context. In response, the system populates the second drop-down list with the course sections that exist in that term.
Use the second drop-down list to pick a source context—the course section that you want to copy from.
In the area of the screen labeled Step 2, select the destination context. The list should include all existing contexts for course sections that you teach now or are scheduled to teach in the future. Note that you can select more than one course section by using the Shift or Control keys.
In the area of the screen labeled Step 3, choose Selected Course Content.
If the Conflicting Page Names box appears, select one of the following:
Merge
Overwrite
Note
If you want to copy the Coursework, Gradebook, and Attendance pages, you must select Overwrite. Content from these pages cannot be merged.
Do one or both of the following:
Use the checkboxes at the left to select individual pages that you want to copy. If you want to copy just individual features on any page, click the name of any page to display a list of its contents, then select any specific features that you want to copy.
If any subsections were defined for the source context, select any that you want to copy.
If you want to copy the Coursework, Gradebook, and Attendance pages, you must first select Overwrite (in the Conflicting Page Names list at the right; this is described below, in step 7).
Note that if you select Overwrite, and if you have selected one feature from a particular page, that page within the target context will be entirely overwritten. For example, suppose you decide to copy the Announcements feature from the Main page, but nothing else from that page, as illustrated below.
With the Overwrite option, the Main page in the destination context will be entirely overwritten, and it will contain nothing but the imported Announcements feature. If you simply want to add the Announcements feature to the Main page in the destination context, go back to step 4 and select Merge.
If you are copying an instance of the Forums feature, make the appropriate selection in the Forums box on the right-hand side of the screen.
In the area of the screen labeled Step 4, select one of the following options:
Use source dates if applicable—With this default option selected, all future dates will be copied into the destination section exactly as they are in the source section, and dates that are in the past will be recalculated based on their distance from the destination course section’s start date. This is basically the way dates were copied in previous versions of eLearning, and it is also the way dates are handled when you copy a course via rich-template mapping. This setting works best when copying a course to another section of the same course within the same term. For more information see How Dates are Calculated for Copied Assignments.
Roll them over to fit the destination term—If you select this option, all dates in the destination course section will be recalculated so that their distance from the destination term’s start date is the same as the distance between the source dates and the source term’s start date. For example, if an assignment is in a term that starts on January 1 and has a due date of January 15—a difference of 14 days—and it is copied into a term that starts on June 10, the new assignment's due date will be June 24. For more information see How Dates are Calculated for Copied Assignments.
Click Copy.
The system generates a pop-up window asking whether you are sure you want to copy the selected material.
Click OK.
The system displays a Please Wait pop-up window, then a screen that indicates that the materials were copied successfully.
Note
Depending on your site configuration, you may see an additional screen for adjusting dates for units and assignments once the copy completes. See Adjusting Dates for Copied Units and Assignments for more information.
After executing a course copy in which all destination courses are in the same term, the system will display an additional screen that allows you to adjust the dates for units and assignments if necessary. After making your selections, click Update due dates to save your changes. If you copy into multiple sections in the same term, these updates will apply to all of the copied courses.
Note
This screen will display only if configured to do so by your administrator.
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