Blackboard Course Copy

Please read this entire post before copying your course. While the process is easy, it is also important to avoid common mistakes.

When to Use Course Copy

The course copy process can be used to copy an entire existing course, including all tests, lessons, pages, documents, assignment drop boxes, etc., from one course to another. The most common case is copying a course you teach from one term to a newer term.

When NOT to Use Course Copy

There are also some cases in which course copy may not be your best action:

• If you have not built in Blackboard before, please use the instructions to import a course structure.
• If you want to move tests or pools from one course to another, please follow the Blackboard Tests and Pools Export/Import Instructions.

If you're unsure which process suits your needs, Online Learning 503 491 7170 can help.

Before you Begin

The course copy process must be completed before any other content is added to the course and before any edits are made to the course.

• After submitting your course copy (see below), DO NOT make ANY edits to your course until you receive a confirmation email that the course copy process has completed.
• If your copy does not look as intended, DO NOT COPY AGAIN. Contact Online Learning for help.
• Do NOT copy a course more than once into the same target shell or copy multiple courses into the same shell. This will result in duplicate content, duplicate grade center columns, etc. Contact Online Learning for assistance if you need to copy elements from different shells.

To copy course content...

1. Enter the source course. This should be the course shell with existing content you want to copy.
   
2. From Course Management Menu in source course, select Packages and Utilities
3. Choose Course Copy
   
4. Copy Type is fixed by default to the correct copy option.
5. Browse Destination Course
   
6. You may see a long list of courses. TIP: Use search tools to narrow options
   
7. Select Destination course and hit Submit
8. "Select ALL" Course Materials.
   
9. Highly Recommended: Do not change any settings except the options listed below. If you want to change a setting please contact Online Learning first.
   • Discussion Board: Select "Include only the forums with no starter posts" (the second option) to make sure you do not copy old student and instructor posts into the new course.
   • Announcements: If you do not re-use announcements from term to term, deselect Announcements.

     If you accidentally copy your discussion threads, check out How to Delete Old Discussion Threads in New Class

10. Keep "Copy Links and copies of the Content (include entire course home folder)"
11. Submit
    
12. You will be sent an email confirming that the course copy is complete. Most courses will finish copying within 20 minutes. During times of high volume, it may take longer. Be patient.
    • ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CLICK SUBMIT MORE THAN ONCE.
    • WAIT FOR THE CONFIRMATION EMAIL BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH ANY OTHER EDITING IN YOUR COURSE.

Problems?

Copied your course and still no content appears in the new course?

Check to make sure you did not reverse the Source course and Destination course. It happens. You can confirm this happened by visiting the Source course and reading the message along the top of the window -- it will tell you which course was copied to which destination. Luckily, copying in the reverse direction shouldn't harm your course contents. Just try again, making sure you enter the course with your content and copy it to the new or empty course.

Course Copy FAQ

The ability for instructors to copy their own courses has been around for several years now. Click the button below to open an archived FAQ about the process.

Set Student Permissions

Please remember to perform this crucial process for every Blackboard course, every term. If you have more than one section, you'll need to set permissions for each one.

Set Student Permissions in Bb

The links in the steps below open images that illustrate the steps.

1. Scroll to the Course Management menu in your course. Click Files to expand its options. Then click on your course ID.
2. At the top of the page, click the action link beside the Course ID Title. Choose Permissions in drop-down.
3. Look for "Student" in list of roles.
   • If Student is already present, confirm that only the Read column is checked. If so, you are done.
   • If Student is not listed, proceed...
4. Along the top of the page, click Select Roles, then Institution Roles
5. Click "01 Student" in the left box, then click to right arrow to move 01 Student to the right box. Confirm ONLY Read is checked.
   • You do not need to worry about the Overwrite option lower on the page if students were not in the permission list (see Step 3 above).
6. Click Submit at bottom right.

Video Instructions

Date Management in Blackboard

Whenever you copy your course into a new term, be sure to update the availability and due dates for assignments, discussions and tests. Here's how you can update ALL of your dates in ONE go!

Run Date Management

1. Click on Control Panel/Course Tools/Date Management
2. Choose "List all Dates for Review" Start--> Process Runs --> Next
   
3. Click "Select Item Types" and choose tools you want to update. TIP:Don't select Announcements as these sometimes range beyond a ten-week period.
   
4. Select Date Types. Check the bottom right area of the page to see if all of your dates are listed. If not, click Show All before you continue. Best practice: Choose them all and note number Adaptively Released. If there are many, be prepared to document which items have date adaptive releases.
   
5. EASY METHOD: Adjust Dates the fast way by number of days e.g. 105 days....
   

   Tip:

   Find the first day of the term in the original course. Let's say it was April 6. Then find the first day of the term in the new course (the one whose dates you are editing). Let's say September 7. Then go to Google and type in "How many days between April 6 and September 7?" With any luck, Google provides a numerical answer.

   Enter that as the number of days to adjust by. And if you end up off by a day one direction or the other? Just adjust dates again. This time add one day or subtract one day. Yes, you can subtract. Just use the up or down arrows next to where you enter the number.

6. HARD Way: Adjust Dates the slow way by manually entering in the calendar