ARCHIVED: In Oncourse, how can I re-use my syllabus or other materials from last semester?

Note: An animated Flash tutorial is available for this topic. It will open in a new window and includes audio. In the bottom left corner, you'll see a controller that allows you to navigate through the current tutorial and access a menu of other Oncourse-related tutorials. For instructions on navigating through the tutorial, click the blue ? (question mark) on the controller. Also, closed captioning is available. To toggle it on and off, in the bottom right corner, click CC. To access the tutorial, visit:

  http://original-oncourse.iu.edu/help/fal2004/tutorials/SY3.html

Oncourse has both export and import tools that allow you to re-use and move information from one course to another. The only material that cannot be moved is personal communications. This includes:

• The content of Course Mail (sent and received)
• Group Space
• Drop Box files
• Discussion Forum postings
• Chat conversations

Note: Discussion Forum and Chat Room folders can be re-used.

To export material from an existing course

1. Log into Oncourse and select the existing course by clicking its title. For help, see ARCHIVED: For Oncourse, how do I log in?
2. Go to Authoring Tools for the existing course. For help, see ARCHIVED: In Oncourse, how do I access Authoring Tools?
3. Click Export course settings, and then click Save File to continue. This will open a File Download or Save As... dialog box.
4. Select a location on your workstation drive or floppy disk for storing the file.

To import the saved file into a new course

1. Log into Oncourse and select your new course by clicking its title. For help, see ARCHIVED: For Oncourse, how do I log in?
2. Go to Authoring Tools for your new course. For help, see ARCHIVED: In Oncourse, how do I access Authoring Tools?
3. Choose Import course settings.
4. In the dialog box that appears, click Browse to locate the file you just exported to your workstation drive or floppy disk. (The file will be called export.asp.)
5. In the next dialog box, where the default file type is shown as HTML files, use the drop-down menu to change the type to All Files.
6. Select the export.asp file icon, and click Open. This will return you to the "Import Course Settings" window. In the box labeled "Select the file to import from...", you will see the exact location (path) of your export.asp file.
7. Click either the Add or Replace radio button:
   • If your new course already has some materials prepared, and you would like to append your imported materials to them, choose Add. This is always the safest option.
   • Only choose Replace if you are confident that you would like to delete any existing materials in your new course.
8. Under "Select the items you want to import", click the checkboxes next to each item that you'd like to import.

   Note: The specific content of Discussion Forums and Course Mail will not be imported. Also, courses are automatically populated with the registrar's enrollment database; any user not locked in the roster will be removed when the registrar supplies the next update. It only makes sense to import users if you have manually added several unregistered people and locked their roster entries. If a student from the original course is also registered in your new course, you may see several error messages if you add the roster. These do not indicate a problem.

9. Click Import Data. Wait for the confirmation screen; make sure that the correct material was imported and that the transfer was completed successfully. If you imported a lot of information, this may take several seconds.