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Copying a Section or Template
Introduction
WebCTs Help for: Copying Templates, German Version, French Version.
Vista Help Text: Copying Section as Template, German Version, French Version.
This page provides you with a step by step instruction for copying templates or sections and indicates problems or difficulties. Further information especially about difficulties steaming from re-importing can be found in Chapter 3, Sect: "About Roles and Template Permission" sub-chapter "Copying Templates" in the Vista's Administrators guide (pdf, 2.1 MB) p 84 ff. . Get UN & PW at edutech Vista Support.
Table of content
Copying a template: 3 versions
For Institution and Group Administrators.
When copying a template, you must decide how you want to copy the files from the source template to the new template. You can create file copies or file subscriptions:
- File copies prevent edits to the original files from being reflected in the files that reside in your course.
- File subscriptions allow edits to the original files to automatically be reflected in the files that reside in your course.
In addition, the source template may already contain file subscriptions to files in other locations. You must decide if you want to maintain these existing file subscriptions.
Therefore, when you are copying a template, you can select from the following three subscription options:
- Keep subscriptions: All existing file subscriptions in the source template are maintained in the new template. All other files are copied from the source template to the new template. Therefore, for all file subscriptions, edits to all original files will be reflected in the files in the new template; file copies will not reflect edits.
- Fully subscribe: All existing file subscriptions in the source template are maintained in the new template. All other files from the source template become file subscriptions in the new template. Therefore, edits to all original files will be reflected in the files in the new template.
- Fully copy: Existing file subscriptions in the source template are not maintained in the new template. Instead, all files in the source template are copied to the new template. Therefore, edits to all original files will not be reflected in the files in the new template.
Subscriptions only apply to files. Tool items in the source template, such as discussion topics and chat rooms, are always copied from the source template and pasted in the new template.
- From the Template Manager screen, navigate to the learning context that contains the template you want to copy.
- Locate the template and, under Actions, click its Copy icon. The Content Browser pop-up window appears.
- Navigate to the learning context in which you want to paste the copied template. (You can only paste templates to a learning context for which you have template permissions.)
- If you want to rename the copy, in the Paste as text box, enter a name for the template.
- Next to Subscription options, select how you want to copy files from the source template to the new template.
- Click OK.
- Next to Template status, do one of the following:
- To make the template private, select Private.
- To make the template public, select Public.
- WARNING: Public templates cannot be changed back to private.
- Under Template permissions, from the Ownership drop-down list, select a user in the destination learning context as the template owner.
- If you want to assign editors to the template, next to Template
editor(s), select one or more designers in the destination learning
context:
NOTE: Owners are automatically selected as editors. - a. Under Potential editor(s), select the users.
- b. Click the Add icon. The users are moved from the Potential editor(s) column to the Selected Editor(s) column.
- c. If you want to remove a user that you selected as an editor, under Selected Editor(s), select the user and click the Remove icon. The user is moved back to the Potential editor(s) column.
- Click Save. The template is copied and the Template Manager screen appears.
Copying a Section and pasting it as template
For Institution, Division and Group Administrators and Course Designer
When copying a section as a template you can select one of the following subscription options to control how the files in the section will be copied to the template:
- Keep subscriptions: All existing file subscriptions in the section are maintained in the template. All other files are copied from the section to the template. Therefore, for all file subscriptions, edits to all original files will be reflected in the files in the template; file copies will not reflect edits.
- Fully copy: Existing file subscriptions in the section are not maintained in the template. Instead, all files in the section are copied to the template. Therefore, edits to all original files will not be reflected in the files in the template.
Note: Member data contained in the section is not copied to the template. Therefore, although Grade Book columns and Group Manager groups are copied, neither contain any member data. In addition, any selective release criteria that are based on section members become invalid in the template. Before assigning the template to a new section, a user with designer permissions should delete the invalid selective release criteria.
- From the Template Manager screen, navigate to the section you want to copy as a template.
- Click Save this Section as Template. The Content Browser pop-up window appears.
- Follow the procedure described in the chapter Copying a Template here above.
Warning
- Don't ever delete a section or template that you have derived a copy from. Even if your copy is an unlinked one you might incur losses in case the original item is delete (linked files are represented in italic in the File Manager).
- If you really want to make sure that your copy no longer contains any link to a parent section or template you manually have to break the links of each single file (you can select groups of files with the shift key) with the break link button in the Action menu.