There are several methods for copying courses from the system administration area. In addition, Bb offers different types of copies, depending on what is and is not copied to the new course.

Copy Options

When we copy a course, the first thing to determine is what we are going to copy. Bb offers three options:

• Exact Copy, which, as its name indicates, creates an exact copy of the course. This exact copy contains not only the course materials, but also users’ enrollments, assignments, access, grades, etc.
• Copy Materials into a New Course. This option creates a new course containing the materials from the copied course, without users, access, or anything else. It is usually used when creating a course offering based on the previous offering.
• Copy Materials into an Existing Course. This option allows us to copy materials to an existing course. The result is a course containing the materials that were already in the course, plus the selected materials from the copied course.

We will proceed to an intermediate page where you can specify what you are going to copy, both the materials themselves and other elements, such as the calendar, announcements, or columns in the gradebook.

In the case of an exact copy, this part of the material selection page is not displayed, and the copy is always complete. If you need to remove materials from the copy, you will have to do so after the process is complete.

At the bottom of the page, you will see other options, such as including enrollments in the copy (for non-exact copies) and a section where you can choose the hierarchy node to which the course will be added.

All three options can be used from any of the copy methods described below.

Copying Courses Manually

Go to Administrator Panel > Courses > Courses. This copy can be performed from two different locations: the Copy Course button, which you will see directly to the right above the table listing the courses, or by first searching for the course to copy and then selecting Copy from the contextual menu.

Both options will then display a drop-down menu where you can choose the copy type, as well as fields for entering the Course ID of the course to copy (when using the button; when using the contextual menu, the course to copy will already be filled in).

We will enter the Course ID of the destination course, and by clicking Submit, we will access the content selection screen and other options. Once you click Submit on this second page, the copy process will begin.

You will receive an email once the process is complete.

Copying Courses via Integration

Copying courses via integration is performed like a normal course creation, but by adding a new column to the upload file that indicates which course is being copied.

In this article, we discuss creating courses using integrations.

We will therefore create our file, adding the TEMPLATE_COURSE_KEY column.

EXTERNAL_COURSE_KEY|COURSE_ID|COURSE_NAME|TEMPLATE_COURSE_KEY
testCourse1|TEST_COURSE_1|Test Course 1|CURSO_PLANTILLA
testCourse2|TEST_COURSE_2|Test Course 2|CURSO_PLANTILLA
testCourse3|TEST_COURSE_3|Test Course 3|CURSO_PLANTILLA

All courses will be exactly the same as the template course. By default, this mode creates exact copies.

This other article explains how to make partial content copies using this method, and how to modify this default behavior of creating exact copies.