At the beginning of each new semester, the system will generate a new course shell automatically for each course. Students will be automatically enrolled in the courses from the SIS system. What then happens at this point? Do you have to reload your files? Fortunately, the answer is NO! Blackboard has a neat feature that allows you to repopulate your shell with the same material without manually uploading every file again. All you will need to do is change the dates on the syllabus and make any updates to the already existing information.

There are 2 different ways to copy content:

1) Course Copy Function:
The course copy function can be used to copy all of the content (and users) from one course to another. You select the destination course and the sections you want to copy. This function cannot be used to copy individual items, only whole sections (such as Course Documents, Calendar, Gradebook, etc.). You can also copy all of the users to another course shell. One issue to watch out for, if the exact item already exists in the new course shell it will create a duplicate copy. So it is not a good idea to copy everything from a development shell to a regular class shell, and then go back to the development shell, make a change and then copy it again. If you would do that, you would have duplicate entries for all of the items.

To use the Course Copy function:
a) Click on the Courses tab
b) Click on the course that you want to copy from
c) Click on Control Panel
d) Click on Course Copy under the Course Options heading
e) Enter the Course ID for the course you want to copy to
f) Next, select all of the areas that need to be copied from Select Course Materials
g) Click Submit
h) You should receive a message stating “This course copy action has been successfully queued. You will receive an email when the process has been completed.”
i) Once the email confirmation has been received, all information has been transferred

2) Copy Individual Course Items:
This method can be used to copy individual course items (documents and folders) to other areas within the same course or to another course.
a) Click on the Courses tab
b) Click on the course that you want to copy from
c) Click on Control Panel
d) Click on the Content Area where the document or folder resides
e) To the right of the item, there will be 3 buttons: Modify, Copy and Remove
f) Click on Copy
g) Select the course to copy to from the Destination Course: menu
h) Select the new folder to copy it to from the Destination Folder: menu
i) Choose whether or not to delete the original item (No is the default)
j) Click Submit

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