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Course Copying

Prefer a video of this process? Go here.

Once you spend the time and effort necessary to create your Blackboard course, you will want to use parts of it again. It is easy to reuse course content, either through a course copy (the process described here) or through a course export. If you are moving your course from "old" Blackboard (Blackboard Learn) to "new" Blackboard (Blackboard Ultra), you will have to use the course export process. Otherwise, the course copy process is the right choice as it's a bit easier and helps with Panopto setup too.

The How-to of Copying 

  1. Login to your course.
  2. Find Packages and Utilities under Control Panel in the Course Management.
  3. Choose Course Copy.
    Packages and Utilities page
  4. Under Select Copy Type, choose Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course.
  5. Under Select Copy Options, click Browse.
    Copy Type and Copy Options page
  6. Select the course into which you would like your content copied.
  7. Click Submit.
    Select Destination Course and click Submit.
  8. Under Select Course Materials, you can choose the Select All option to copy everything. You can also choose specific items that you want to copy.
    Selecting the contents to be copied
  9. Ignore the File Attachments, and the Enrollments sections. Leave the default selected buttons as is.
  10. Note: If you are copying a course from pervious semester, checking the Include Enrollments in the copy enrolls your prior course’s students in your new course.
  11. Click Submit. Blackboard will send you an email message when the course copy is complete. If the new course page is already open, do not forget to refresh page to see updates after the copying contents.
    Do not copy Enrollment

Tips to remember

Discussion Board

There are two options to choose from to copy discussion board.
Copying Discussion Board

  • The default option is to “Include starter posts for each thread in each forum”. You will copy every single post from the previous course.
  • If you choose to “Include only the forums, with no starter posts”, you will have the discussion forums copied without any threads posted by previous students.
  • If you only want to copy the forum, we suggest you select the second option.

Tests and Assignments

  • If you copy everything in the course content area, all assignments and tests are copied to the new course, even the ones that you do not want to use in the current course.
  • If there are due dates to those assignments and tests, those dates from previous semester are carried to the new semester and students will see wrong dates.
  • Therefore, we highly recommend you go to each assessment and change the due dates to match the syllabus for the current semester.

Adaptive Release

  • If you select to copy Adaptive Release Rules to contents, the rules will be carried on to the new semester, even if they are set by dates.
  • Copying Adaptive ReleaseTherefore, either do not select Adaptive Release rules to copy to the new semester, or change the dates to the contents in the new course.

Panopto Videos

  • If there are Panopto videos in your previous semester course that you want to copy or use in your new course, you have to re-configure your course to add the previous semester's Panopto folder to the new one.
  • If the source folder is not added to the current course, students will be prompted to request access to watch each of the videos.