Over many years, Blackboard courses at UMBC were exported out of and imported back into the system. This process met a specific need at a specific time, and continues to provide a way for faculty to save course materials in a digital archive. We are pleased, however, to soon launch Course Copy, a new tool to streamline the reuse and preparation of course content each semester.
The Course Copy tool is convenient way to reuse and adapt existing course structures, materials, and content. With a few clicks, faculty can identify the course to receive the incoming content, choose some or all course content, and trigger the copying process. Compared to export/import, the Course Copy process is faster. Faculty do not have to submit the export request in one Blackboard course, download a package file only to re-upload it to another course for processing. With the Course Copy process, no file is needed to download or upload.
Faculty can copy all or part of the content into a new course or an existing course. The Blackboard course copy tool will only add content to a course; it will never delete or overwrite existing content. This is a good way to copy part of one course into another without overwriting any of the existing course's content. For example, if an instructor just wants to copy Course Documents, she can select only that content area.
Best Practices for Recycling & Reusing Content
- Plan on using Course Copy for the long term -- it is the preferred way among many institutions to recycle course content every semester.
- Support for the Export tool will be gradually reduced. You should plan to only use the Export tool to create an archive for your records and then store the package in Box.
- Request a master course shell to centralize all of your course's content and never lose a document, resource or learning object again!
- Keeping those export packages can contribute to course bloat. We recommend that faculty delete packages from the course export page after downloading. Each package counts against the course quota and keeping packages may result in limited space to add additional content to the course.
Upcoming Training
The Course Copy tool, and several other new resources, will be available at the end of the SP2015 term for use during SU2015 and beyond. Two training sessions are planned:
- Tuesday, April 28 (12-12:50 pm)
- Tuesday, May 12 (1-1:50 pm)
To pre-register for either of these sessions, please select the linked session title and click the green "I Can Attend" button on the event page. We also recommend adding the workshop to your calendar.
Whether for a traditional, hybrid or online course, cultivating and maintaining the content in a course shell in Blackboard requires an investment of time and effort. Many faculty understandably want to preserve these resources and learning objects. The Course Copy tool provides a convenient and easy way.
