Using Oncourse, how do I combine course sites into a single parent site?

View feature demonstrations relevant to this topic.

Note: To complete these procedures, you must be assigned a role having the necessary permissions. To determine your role, follow the directions in Participant roles. To view a list of permissions associated with a given role, see Permissions, roles, and tools. For a basic understanding of roles and permissions, see Permissions and roles: Overview.

If the course you're teaching has several sections, you can combine the course sites for each section into a single parent site, so that you need to maintain only one syllabus, calendar, and set of course materials.

Notes:

• This is a separate feature from the ability to link to a parent site described in Linking to a parent site. That option creates a purely navigational link between separate sites; the option described below combines the rosters, so the sites function as one.
  
  
• It's best to combine course sites before adding content (e.g., Calendar items, assignments, forums, announcements). When you combine sites, content from the individual sites is not automatically transferred to the parent site, and all the tools in the individual sites are disabled. However, if you want to combine rosters for course sites that already contain content, you can still import instructor-generated content (e.g., announcements, assignments, tool settings) into the parent site after combining; see the "Importing material with combined course sites" section of Importing material or participants from another site you own.

You cannot import material submitted to a site, such as completed assignments, forum postings, or grades; you must save or download such content from your site manually. After combining course sites, you cannot easily access this material in the original site, as tools on the original site are automatically disabled upon combining. However, to access material on the original sites, you can use Worksite Setup from My Workspace to enable the tools you need. See Adding, removing, hiding, or reordering tools.

Note: For newly combined course sections in Oncourse, the initial privacy status for instructors and all students is brought forward from the original course section. If the initial privacy status is set to hidden, instructors will be able to see their students, but students will not see their instructors or other students. See Changing your privacy status.

To combine course sites (i.e., sections) into one parent site:

1. In one of the sites you wish to combine with others, from the menubar, click Site Setup.
   
   
2. Near the top, click Combine Rosters.
   
   
3. On the "Combine Rosters" screen, check the boxes to select the sections you want to combine. If you already have a parent site created, you'll see the Choose a Destination option, which will allow you to create a new parent site or join the section to an existing parent site. When you've made your selection(s), click Continue.

   Note: The site from which you accessed Site Setup is selected automatically. Also, sections that are combined into another parent site will be listed, but will have grayed-out checkboxes.

4. If you select sections that differ by campus, department, or course number, you'll be prompted to choose a name for your parent site. Use the radio buttons to make your selection, and then click Continue.
   
   
5. Click Finish to confirm your request to combine rosters.

Once you click Finish, a new site will appear either as a new tab or as a new entry in the - more - drop-down list. It will have a new number located after the name, which will include a "C" to indicate a combined section. If you no longer wish to see the individual sections, you can remove them from your tabs; see Showing, hiding, and ordering sites.

Things to consider

• Selective release: When you're adding an item in certain tools, a parent site will allow you to display the item to a specific section. To do so, use the Display to selected groups option when you're adding a new item. Tools with this selective release option are Announcements, Assignments, Calendar, and Resources.
  
  
• Adding students: When you add a student (or when one is added automatically) to a course site that's been combined into a parent site, the system automatically adds that student to the parent site.
  
  
• Redirecting users to the parent site: When a user clicks a site that's been combined into a parent site, a new window will open, and the user will be automatically redirected to the parent site.
  
  
• Separating combined rosters: After you combine rosters, you may want to separate one or more of them from the parent site. To do so, from the menubar in My Workspace, click Worksite Setup, check the box next to the site you wish to separate, and then click Edit. Then, near the top, click Separate Rosters.
  
  
• Course sites only: This functionality is not available for project sites.

Feature demonstrations

All the following feature demonstrations include audio, and each link will open a new window.

• Combine rosters