How can I move materials from my old courses to my new courses?
There are two tools that will allow you to do this, the File Cabinet and Course Copy. If you have E-Reserves you want to move over, please take a look at the article on transferring E-Reserves first.
File Cabinet
The File Cabinet is a central storage place for bookmarks, handouts, and readings. These three types of course materials may be saved to your File Cabinet from a course then imported from the File Cabinet back into another course. To transfer other types of materials, use Course Copy. Please note that only you have access to your File Cabinet – your students will not be able to view anything in it – so remember to move any materials for students into a portlet in a course.
Saving Items to the File Cabinet
To save items to the File Cabinet, go to the page of the course which contains the materials you wish to put in the File Cabinet. For the portlet that contains the items to be moved, click on either the title of a portlet or on Go to Main Screen.
Once in the Main Screen, check the box next to each item you plan to move. In the menu beneath them select the option Save to File Cabinet. Click Submit to copy the items into the File Cabinet (they will not disappear from the portlet, however).
Importing Items from the File Cabinet into a Course
Go to the page of the course you wish to transfer the materials to. For the portlet you want to import the items to click the portlet’s title or Go to the Main Screen as before. Click on the link at the bottom of the portlet that says Import Handouts from File Cabinet.
That will bring you to a view of your File Cabinet. Check the box next to the materials you wish to transfer, or toggle all the boxes to all checked or all unchecked using the box next to File Name. Once you’ve selected the materials you want, click on Import Selected. The chosen materials will be put in the portlet for that class.
Managing the File Cabinet
You can organize what’s in your File Cabinet directly. To go to it, click on the File Cabinet link under My Pages located in the left navigation. You will now be viewing the contents of your File Cabinet.
There are four tabs in the File Cabinet portlet. The Coursework tab generally won’t be used, but the Bookmarks, Handouts and Readings tabs can store materials of those respective types. You can delete or edit stored materials from within the File Cabinet (note that deleting an item only removes it from File Cabinet; it does not delete it from any course page it may already be on). You can also upload files from your computer directly into File Cabinet by clicking on the Upload Files to File Cabinet link.
Materials can also be organized into folders. Click on the Create a New Folder link to create a new folder. You will be prompted to name the folder and, once created, it will appear in the list with the other materials. To move materials into the folder, check the boxes next to the materials you wish to move and select the folder’s name in the menu below, then click Go.
Course Copy
Course copy is a way to transfer materials from course to course without an intermediate step like the File Cabinet method. You can use it to transfer any or all materials, including ones that File Cabinet cannot handle (such as syllabus, discussion board, etc).
Click Course Copy near the bottom of your left navigation bar.
You will now be viewing the main Copy Courses screen.
Under “Step 1: Where do you want to copy from?”, select first the term of the class you want to copy materials from, then the name of the course you want to copy materials from.
Under “Step 2: Where do you want to copy to?”, select the name of the class you want to copy materials to. Note that you will only be able to select courses in the present or future term here, not classes that have already ended.
Under “Step 3: What do you want to copy?”, you will have the choice of copying the entire course and its layout or just certain pages and portlets. It is recommended that you choose Selected Course Content for more control over what will be moved. If Selected Course Content is chosen, you will then see the option to select which pages’ content should be transferred. Do not choose Course Information. If you choose Course Resources or Readings and Handouts, please take a look at the article on transferring E-Reserves for information on how the E-Reserves will be affected.
On the right-hand side of the Copy Course screen you will have a choice regarding Conflicting Page Names. If you have not set up any content in the course you are copying materials to, choose Overwrite. Otherwise, you will end up with two copies of each portlet. If you already have some materials in the course you’re copying to, the safer bet is to choose Merge so as not to overwrite the work you’ve already done.
If you are copying the Discussion page, you must make a choice on the lower left of the Copy Course screen. The choice here depends on the way you previously designed your discussion board. Choose No Posts to copy only the categories and topics you created for the previous class. This is the best option for most.
If your discussion setup included an initial post from you, the faculty member, to get each thread rolling, select the second option, Faculty. Note that the third option, All, does not actually include all of posts on the board. It instead includes the first post in each thread, whether it be by a student or faculty member.
If you are not copying the Discussion, you may ignore this selection.
Once all of the selections have been made, click Copy at the bottom of the page.
You will see a popup confirmation window. Click OK.
The system will proceed to copy your course materials.
You will get confirmation that the course materials have been copied. From there, click “I want to copy more course materials” to repeat the process or “I’m finished copying course materials for now” to exit the Copy Course tool. You can also click either course title to go to that course’s area.
