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Copy a Course

  • Blackboard Ultra

Last modified: June 6, 2024

You can copy course material and activities from one course to another as long as you have instructor access to both courses.

You are viewing instructions for Ultra view in Blackboard (you would have requested the Ultra Course view)).

If you did not request to change your course, go to Original course view on copying a course instead.

How to Copy a Course

On the Course Content page, select the three dot menu next to the search option on the Course Content page. Select Copy Items from the dropdown menu.

A list of your courses appears. If the course you’re looking for isn’t on the first page, use the arrows to navigate or use the search bar. You can also search for Organizations by selecting the Organizations tab. 

Select a checkbox next to the name of the course to do a full course copy.

Image of the Copy Items page, with the checkbox beside one course selected

Note that announcements will be copied as drafts. You will need to "post" them before students can see them. When you perform a full course copy, all settings are preserved (including due dates, visibility states, and release conditions). However, course links inside of learning modules with forced sequencing can’t be copied. This prevents users from navigating outside of the forced sequencing option. When a course link is copied, all associated content is also copied.

You can copy only select items from a course by clicking the arrow and then selecting just the content you want: 

Image of the Copy Items page, with several categories of course item selected whereas others are not

Update the Dates in the New Course

After you copy a course from one semester to another you can change availability and due dates using the "Date Management" tool by clicking the "..." in the upper right and selecting "batch edit"

Options for Using Date Management

  • Use Course Start Date: This lets you changed dates based on a course start date.  For example if the previous semester started Aug 31 and a particular assignment was due 21 days later, then if you enter Jan 11 as a new start date the dates associated with that assignment will be set to 21 days after Jan 11.  
  • Adjust by Number of Days: Here you enter the number of days that you want dates to be adjusted by (positive for forward, negative for backward).
  • List All Dates For Review: This option will list all the elements in your class that have dates associated with them.  Next to each set of dates you'll find a pencil icon which will allow you to edit them. If you have a large number of dates it may take a while for this report to run - you'll get an email when its complete.

Holidays or days of the week will vary so if you use the automatic adjustments you'll probably still need to tweak things but its a good way to get started.