About copying course components between org units

The copy components utility lets you copy quizzes, content, grade items, discussion forums, Assignments folders, courses with S3 model configurations, and nearly every other type of component from another course offering or a course offering’s parent template. Copying components saves you from having to recreate your course's resources and can significantly reduce the amount of work required to create or re-offer a course.

You can use the copy components feature to:

  • Reuse components created in a previous course offering.
  • Add components created by your peers into your own course offering.
  • Set up standard components inside a course template and copy them into a new course offering each time a course is re-offered.
  • Copy courses with S3 model configurations
  • Include the selected course as an additional historic course

Requirements

To copy components between course offerings:

  • Depending on your role in your organization, you require one or both of the following course copy permissions: Copy Components into Org Unit or Copy Components out of Org Unit.
    These two separate permissions offer granular control over copying course components and enable workflows associated with parent content (in a course offering or parent template org unit).
    For example, an organization has a Science Course that is intended as a course that instructors can copy from, but not modify. Instructors can copy common course components in Science Course to other science courses, for example, Science 101 and Science 202.
    Jane has two roles: Reviewer role in Science Course, and Instructor role in Science 101 and Science 202.
    The Reviewer role has the Copy Components out of Org Unit permission, but not the Copy Components into Org Unit permission.
    The Instructor role has the Copy Components into Org Unit permission, but not the Copy Components out of Org Unit permission.
    In Science Course, Jane cannot see the option to Copy Course Components in Content or Course Admin. She cannot copy any components into the Science Course.
    In Science 101, Jane can see the options to Copy Course Components. When she searches for courses to copy, she can see Science Course; however, she cannot see Science 202.
    Note: These permissions also affect the Copy From Parent Template option in Copy Course Components. This option is only visible if the instructor is enrolled in the parent template with a role that has the Copy Components out of Org Unit permission at the template level.
  • You must be enrolled in both offerings.
  • You need to be enrolled in and have access to the parent template to copy components from the parent into a course offering. Note that all copied intelligent agents are disabled by default, unless your administrator has disabled the d2l.Tools.IntelligentAgents.DisableAgentsOnCopy configuration variable.
  • To copy courses with S3 model configurations, you must enable the Student Success System at the instance and org level.

You can also copy components into a course template, and you can create standard components within a template and then copy them into the template’s associated course offerings.

A validation logic step is also included in the copy process. To help reduce duplicate objects and cleanup from the copy process, the validation logic informs you if you have previously copied from the source course.

Common concerns

The following table addresses some common concerns around copying course components between org units:

Concern

Answer

Overwriting and duplicating content

The only components you might overwrite are course files. Course files are overwritten if one of the files being copied has the same name as an existing file. No other components are overwritten.

For example, if you have three checklists in your current course offering, and copy two checklists from another offering, you will now have a total of five checklists in the current offering. This is true even if the components are identical. If you are copying components from the same source multiple times, be careful not to copy the same items more than once or you will create duplicates.

User privacy might be compromised when copying course components

User data is not copied. For example, if you copy the discussions component, only the forums and topics are copied, not the posts inside the topics. Similarly, if you copy Assignments folders or quizzes, user submissions and quiz attempts are not copied.

Links and associations between components

D2L recommends that you copy all components between courses to ensure you maintain all desired associations, and then delete any undesired material in the new course.

If you are copying linked or associated components, you must copy all of the related components at the same time. For example, if a discussion topic has release conditions based on the results of a quiz, you must copy all three components—discussions, quizzes, and release conditions—at the same time. Similarly, if you have a quiz that is associated with a grade item, be sure to copy both the quiz and the grade item at the same time. As long as the associated components are copied together, links between them are retained.

To copy release conditions, you must select the Release Conditions component.