Copy a Blackboard Course or Specific Course Content

Follow these steps to copy a Blackboard course, or just certain course content, to a destination course. This is useful when teaching a new section of a past course, several sections of the same course, or if course content overlaps between multiple courses.

Steps to Copy a Course

1. Log into Blackboard and navigate to your Courses page.

2. Find the destination course and, if necessary, make it unavailable/private. If the course is available, enrolled students will receive an email notification that content has been added to the course and, if any assignments from the source course had due dates, a notification that the assignments are all past due. To avoid confusion, make sure the destination course is unavailable.
   Unavailable courses are indicated by a lock below the course.
   
   

   If you don’t see the lock, you can select the More Options button to the right of the course and select Make Course Private, OR you can go into the course and select the Make Unavailable lock button in the top right, next to Edit Mode.

   

3. Next, open the source course.
4. In the course menu under Course Management, expand Packages and Utilities and select Course Copy
   
   
5. Change “Select Copy Type” to Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course.
   
   
6. Select Browse… to locate and select the Destination Course that you’d like to copy the content into.
7. Once the desired course is selected, click Submit.
8. Select the Content you want to copy. 

   1. If copying the entire course, click Select All to ensure that all of your content safely makes it to the Destination Course.

      Student-submitted work will never be copied over, with the exception of the Discussion board. Be sure to check Include only the forums, with no starter posts if your students created their own threads in Blackboard's discussion board tool.

      

   2. You may also choose to select only a handful of simple materials like Word/PDF documents or embedded videos via Course Content Pages.
      

      Be aware that some components, like Assignments and the Grade Center Settings, are dependent on one another and will not populate properly in the Destination Course without each other.
      

      
      

9. Select the File Attachment settings:

   1. Copy links to Course Files: This is useful if you are copying from a shared template that may be updated mid-semester. If the files are overwritten in the original template, they will automatically update in all courses copied with this setting.

   2. Copy links and copies of the content: This is the default and recommended option for most course copy requests. This will ensure that the Destination Course receives its own copies of the selected content for your current students to access, rather than erroneously linking them back to the Source Course.

   3. Copy links and copies of the content (include entire course home folder)

10. Do not include enrollments in the Copy.
11. Click Submit to initiate the Copy. It will take a few minutes to run and you will receive an automated email once complete.

Export a Course

Exporting a Blackboard Course preserves all instructor-generated course content for use in a future course. Exports are necessary only when dealing with seldom-taught courses. At any given point, you only have access to the past two years of your Fairfield Blackboard courses. If you anticipate two years passing before you teach a course again, you may want to Export it for a potential future Import.

In most cases, you will be looking to copy the content of an old section of a course to a new one. As long as you still have access to the old course and the new one exists already, please use the Copy a Course or Course Content.

Steps to Export a Course

1. Log into Blackboard and navigate to your Courses page.
2. Open the course you wish to export.
3. In the course menu under Course Management, expand Packages and Utilities and select Export/Archive Course.
   
4. Choose Export Package.
   
   
5. Confirm these File Attachments settings:
   • Set 'Course Files Default Directory' to Copy links and include copies of the files in the course default direcory.
   • Set 'Files Outside of the Course Default Directory' to Copy links and include copies of the files
     
     
   • 
6. Under Select Course Materials, choose Select All to confirm that all course components are exported.
   
7. Choose Submit to generate the Export Package.
8. After submitting, you will be returned to the Export/Archive page while the package is created. Click the Refresh to check if the Packaging process has finished.
   
9. Once the Export appears, hover your cursor over the Package's title, then click the tiny context menu arrow that appears to the right. Select Open to launch a zip download and select where you’d like to save the package on your computer’s local drive.
   

Import a Course

These steps show how to Import a Blackboard course that has previously been Exported to a local file directory. You should have a .zip file ready for Importing.

Steps to Import a Course

1. Log into Blackboard and navigate to your Courses page.
2. Open the course you wish to export.
3. In the course menu under Course Management, expand Packages and Utilities and select Import Package/View Logs.
   
4. Choose Import Package.
   
   
5. Choose Browse My Computer and designate the previously downloaded .zip Export Package for Import.
   
   
6. Under Select Course Materials, choose Select All to confirm that all course components are exported.
   
   
7. Choose Submit to start the import process.

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