Create a Course Template Manually

Create a Course Template Manually

Info
This article will be most useful for System Administrators.

Overview

Course templates are usually created via course feed, but it may occasionally be necessary to create course templates manually. For example, a course may have been overlooked and left out of the course feed that creates templates; in which case, a high-level user can create a template manually to get the course in your system quickly. Continue reading to learn how to create a course template manually.

Before You Begin

Only users with Create Courses system permission are able to create courses in your Concourse system. Create Courses permission is not synonymous with Administer System Permission, so even System Admins cannot create courses unless their system permissions have been updated accordingly.

Creating a Linked Course Template Manually

Linked templates receive content from the higher-level templates to which they are linked. For example, linked course templates receive content from the department-level templates to which they are linked. To create a linked template, a user with Create Courses permission should follow the steps below:
  1. Select Create. In the Create drop down, choose Clone Course.
  2. Search for the higher-level template to which the new course template should be linked.
    1. Select +Advanced to open additional search criteria, such as subject, number, or department.
    2. In the Templates drop down, choose Templates only.
    3. Choose or enter search criteria and select Search.
  3. In the Results block, select Clone to the left of the template you would like to clone. A page appears that contains Required Information and Optional Information sections.
  4. In the Required Information section, complete every field for the course you are creating.
    1. Course Title: Enter the name of the course template being created (ex: English I Template)
    2. Campus: Enter the Campus where the template should be stored in your Concourse system.
    3. Department: Enter the Department where the template should be stored in your Concourse system.
    4. Start Date: Enter the date of creation.
    5. End Date: Choose a date after the start date.
    6. Section: select Create New and enter Template in the text field.
    7. My Group: choose Do Not Enroll.
    8. Is Template: Check the box
      1. If the Is Template box is not checked when the course is created, it will NOT be linked to the template that is being cloned.
    9. External ID: enter the External ID of the template being created. The external ID of the new template must match the template naming convention in your Concourse system (ex: ENGL1001_TMPL).
  5. Enter information relevant to the template in the Optional Information section.
  6. Select Clone to create the template, or exit the page to cancel creating a template.

Creating a Course Template (Not Linked)

If the course template being created is not to be linked to a higher-level template, the user with Create Courses permission should follow the steps below:
  1. Select Create. In the Create drop down, choose Structured Course.
  2. A page appears that contains Required Information and Optional Information sections.
  3. In the Required Information section, complete every field for the course you are creating.
    1. Course Title: Enter the name of the course template being created (ex: English I Template)
    2. Campus: Enter the Campus where the template should be stored in your Concourse system.
    3. Department: Enter the Department where the template should be stored in your Concourse system.
    4. Start Date: Enter the date of creation.
    5. End Date: Choose a date after the start date.
    6. Section: select Create New and enter Template in the text field.
    7. My Group: choose Do Not Enroll.
    8. Is Template: Check the box
      1. If the Is Template box is not checked when the course is created, it will NOT be identified in your system as a template, which making searching more difficult.
    9. External ID: enter the External ID of the template being created. The external ID of the new template must match the template naming convention in your Concourse system (ex: ENGL1001_TMPL).
  4. Enter information relevant to the template in the Optional Information section.
  5. Select Create to create the template, or exit the page to cancel creating a template.

Best Practices and Recommendations

When creating a template in your Concourse system, keep the following guidance and limitations in mind:
  1. Including the word “Template” in the title of the course template makes it easier for users to determine whether they are viewing a template or live course. Course titles are not cloned into live courses via feed, so you do not need to worry about live courses cloned from “Course Title Template” containing the word “Template” in their title too.
  2. The department you choose for storing the template must exist within the campus you chose. If the department does not exist within the selected campus in your Concourse system, the course template will not be created. Refer to the Manage Domains page to better understand your Concourse system’s domain hierarchy.
  3. The dates of the template determine whether the template is considered a past, current, or future course. If you want templates to be less searchable but do not want to restrict group permissions or hide templates, you could set start and end dates in the past; search defaults to current and future courses, so users would have to take an extra step to search for past templates. If you want templates to be more searchable for a long time, we suggest that you set an end date far into the future.
  4. If External IDs of templates do not match the naming convention in your Concourse system, it’s possible that course feeds will error out when attempting to clone the course. When the external ID of a template cannot be found by a course feed or the external ID of a template in your system does not match the course feed, we expect to see a “bad clone-from identifier” error during feed processing.
  5. Unstructured Concourse systems (syllabus uploads) can technically clone courses, but this process does not link the two templates together because the system does not contain any structured items to link. 

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