Hello all,

At UCA we wanted to generate now modules from a template to enable us to pre-load content and menu items. Similar to Mary's comment, we took this approach to give students a more consistent experience when moving through their programme of study; prior to this some modules were content-rich while others remained bare.

The following outlines the process we go through every year:

1. Create one template for our FE modules and a second for our undergrad modules
2. Tailor the menu items in the templates as needed, then load up any content that will be common to all BB modules
3. Use Snapshot to generate new modules from the templates using an Excel spreadsheet, adding the current academic year as a suffix (_11, _12 etc.) This enables students to revisit modules that they have previously completed and avoids the problem of breaking the links to Turnitin assignments.

The spreadsheet essentially resides in between SITS and Blackboard. Although I don't write the Snapshot process, using a spreadsheet enables us administrators to amend module titles and redirect enrolments without having to pester our IT department. When course names change or cohorts merge, this can be amended in the spreadsheet and the changes are reflected in Blackboard when the Snapshot process runs twice a day.

In terms of transferring content, we took the decision to oblige academic staff to transfer their content manually so that they would consider removing or revising any content that might be out of date. We found that bulk-transferring content resulted in many courses containing out of date information. Obviously we offer to help them with this if they request it, but it just causes them to pause and consider the currency of their content.

We've also made use of the Module Page in the course templates to aggregate specific links into modules - e.g. Study Advice, Library links etc. This means that even after all the courses have been created we can still change the content of each module but only have to do it once.

It's certainly interesting to hear how others approach the rollover - thanks to all for sharing your thoughts.

Kind regards,

Tony

Tony Reeves
Learning Technologist
University for the Creative Arts

Twitter         tonyjreeves <http://twitter.com/#%21/tonyjreeves>
Blog             techtrees.blogspot.com <http://techtrees.blogspot.com>
myUCA help  myuca.ucreative.ac.uk/help <http://myuca.ucreative.ac.uk/help>  <http://myuca.ucreative.ac.uk/help>

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From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Mary Jacob [mhj] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 03 May 2012 11:08
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Roll over content - how do you do this?

Dear Kevin,
 
At Aberystwyth, we used to ‘roll over’ by removing the students from the modules, and then enrolling new students. We kept one instance of each module, with whatever content was in it at the time of rollover.
 
Starting last summer, we went to a ‘course copy’ process. We set up a new template and made a copy of all active modules for the coming academic year. The copies include all of the previous year’s content but will have the current year’s students. The Blackboard course ID includes the academic year and we changed the My Institution page to put current modules in a separate box. We now keep one instance of each module per academic year, and allow last year’s students to retain access to last year’s version of the module. We can also do the course copy earlier in the summer, because we don’t have to wait for resits to be completed before doing roll over.
 
We had an outreach campaign to talk to each department and encourage them to refresh their modules through the process of moving to the new template. We are repeating it again this year to pick up any modules that have not been refreshed.
 
Our aims were:
·        Help students learn by allowing them to keep access to their modules from one year to the next

·        Enable academic staff earlier access to revise their modules earlier in the summer

·        Encourage academic staff to refresh their teaching material and module organisation

·        Give students a more consistent experience across modules when using Blackboard


We are happy with the result, but will be doing more outreach to make sure that all the modules are reorganised to fit the content into the new template properly for next year.
 
It will be interesting to hear what other institutions have found when encouraging staff to refresh their modules.
 
Thanks for opening this thread.
 
Cheers,
Mary
 

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Mary Jacob, BA, MA, CMALT, FHEA
Cymorth E-ddysgu / E-learning Support
Grwp E-wasanaethau a Chyfathrebu / E-services & Communications Group
Gwasanaethau Gwybodaeth / Information Services
Prifysgol Aberystwyth / Aberystwyth University
SY23 3DZ
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From: Brace, Kevin [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 02 May 2012 11:26
Subject: Roll over content - how do you do this?


Dear all,



we are scoping out how others "roll over" Bboard courses from one year to the next.  I.e. do you;


1.      Roll over complete courses to allow staff to update resources/ reading lists, etc. ready for each new academic year? If you do rollover complete courses every year,  have you experienced any permissions issues ( i.e. copy item feature not working as expected) if you don't use Content CMS?


2.      Create empty courses - i.e. no roll over of content each year? If so, have you seen any improvement in "quality" of courses? Or conversely any reduction of Bboard use?


3.      A combination of the above two, e.g. rollover content and also have a clean sweep very 3 - 5 years?


4.      Use a common course template for the above procedures?





At Aston we roll over complete courses. Any new courses are created using a common template.





Regards.



Kevin Brace. Bsc(Hons), MSc, Ieng, CMALT, PDF-ELT

Associate Head of Technology Enhanced Learning

Centre for Learning Innovation & Professional Practice

http://www1.aston.ac.uk/clipp/.  Please read our CLIPP Blog for all latest news

Aston University

Birmingham B4 7ET

T: 0121 204 4230