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Creating a Course Based on a Template
Introduction
WebCTs Help for: Creating a section, German Version, French Version.
Remember: the word "course" is used in Vista speak for a pool of what you would call a course. Whereas for an individual course Vista speak uses "section".
Vista provides you with an interesting way to keep all your options open, if you start creating your section as a template. Templates allow you to build courses by adding tools and course content that do not contain student data. The section derived from such a template is linked to the template and changes and additions in the texts are passed on from the template to the section.
This includes, that
- you can develop the template without changing the section (the actual course).
- there can be as many derived sections from a template as are needed for your or your colleagues
- even if you have many derived sections, there is only one template to adapt in case of needed corrections.
- such derived sections can be edited without changing the template from which it originates. This means that derived courses can present quite a different visual aspect than the parent template, while still containing more or less the same content.
- templates can have many designer and these can be different from the designer of any sections that are derived from them.
Advantages of using template:
- If a university has produced an exemplary course, for example for entry students, this course can be delivered in as many derived instances at other universities as need be, and still can be modified and kept à jour from one single place.
- If a teacher wants to use the same course content with other students or in another semester it is now easy to just derive an assigned version of the template.
Difficulties
- If you need to change more than just text, that is, if you add new pages, or other files, these will not be automatically passed down to the derived section. You will need to use the reassignment procedure that erases all pre-existing content in the section. One looses any mails, forum messages, assignments etc. from the course.
- The workaround is to use the file subscription allowing to link individual files from outside the course linking them in a similar way than templates assigned as a whole (
Browse for Files > Repository > Subscribe). This means mixing two methods.