When you are preparing for a new semester, often you will want to copy materials from an old course into your new course. Before starting, however, you must make sure that your new course appears on your course list when you log into Blackboard. In general, towards the end of a given semester, the system will create the following semester's course shells (a course shell is a course with a name and an instructor, but no content). Then you have two options for "filling" your course shell with materials from a previous course.

If the course you want to copy from appears on your course list:

1. Open the course to copy from.

2. Go to the Control Panel and in the “Course Options” group, click Course Copy.

Step 2

3. Choose "Copy Materials into an Existing Course" (your only choice).

Step 3

4. In the next screen, click on the "Browse" button to choose the new course into which you want to copy materials.

Step 4

5. A search box will appear. You can search in various ways; one easy option is to type in the semester code of your new course (ex. "200509" for 2005 Fall semester).

Step 5

6. Once the list of courses appears, click the Select button next to the course to copy material into.

Step 6

7. You are returned to the previous screen, where you can choose the areas you want to copy. Please make sure that you do NOT copy over the enrollment. Otherwise your list of users for a course may include previous semester students. Then click the Submit button.

Step 7

8. The system will return a receipt indicating whether the course copy was successful. Though the receipt may say that you will receive an email, do not expect to receive one. Click OK.

Step 8

If the course you want to copy from does not appear on your course list:

1. Locate the archive/export file of the course you would like to copy from. If you do not have an archive/export file, see these instructions for archiving/exporting your old course.

2. Open the new course.

3. Go to the Control Panel and in the “Course Options” group, click Import Package.

Step 3

4. In the following screen, click on the "Browse" box and select your archive/export file.

Step 4

5. Select which areas to import, then click the Submit button.

Step 5

6. You should receive a receipt indicating whether the import was successful. Click OK.

Step 6