Overview
Regardless of your LMS, Harmonize is compatible with course copy. That means that as you move into a new semester and either import or copy your old courses, the Harmonize assignments will come over as well. There are three easy guidelines you can follow to have a smooth, successful course copy experience with Harmonize:
- Measure twice, cut once (a.k.a., check everything before copying).
- Do not ever duplicate Harmonize activities within a course.
- Reach out to support@harmonizelearning.com if anything goes wrong.
Below, we will expand on these guidelines and will also provide LMS-specific details.
Three Easy Guidelines for Course Copy
1. Measure twice, cut once (a.k.a., check everything before copying)
Check everything in the original course before you do the course copy. This is particularly important if you're copying content from one, original course, to a large number of new courses. It's easier to make one change in the original course than it is to make the same change again and again in each new course. We suggest checking:
- Content
- Due Dates
- Milestones
- Settings
2. DO NOT EVER duplicate Harmonize activities WITHIN a course
Course copy only works across different courses. There is no way to duplicate Harmonize content within a single course without causing major problems. If you find a possible workaround that seems to let you duplicate a Harmonize activity within a course... don't do it! Or please reach out to us first at support@harmonizelearning.com to confirm your workflow. When material is somehow duplicated within a course, it causes problems that can be difficult (or impossible) to fix. These include:
- Student work disappearing
- Grades disappearing or failing to pass back to the learning management system
- Lost instructions and content
3. Reach out to support@harmonizelearning.com if anything goes wrong
Course copy is easy and works very well 99.9% of the time. But if you notice that something has gone wrong, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We may know a way to fix the problem, limit its scope, or at least prevent it in the future.
- Note: At Harmonize, we love creativity! But, alas, this is not the time to think outside the box or come up with novel solutions. Sometimes a "solution" can actually cause bigger problems down the line. Please reach out to us. We're here to help!
Blackboard
Follow the Three Easy Guidelines for Course Copy and then copy your content. The instructions for this are different for Ultra and Learn:
D2L | Brightspace
Follow the Three Easy Guidelines for Course Copy and then Import, Export, or Copy Course Components.
Canvas
Follow the Three Easy Guidelines for Course Copy and then copy your material using one of the methods available in Canvas. You can:
- Use the Course Import Tool to import content from one course to another.
- Copy Harmonize Discussions between Canvas Courses without copying a whole course.
- Copy a Course to create a new course.
- Use Blueprinting to push content from one parent course to one or more linked child courses (but see Canvas Blueprints below).
Canvas Blueprints
While you can use Canvas blueprinting to copy Harmonize discussions from a parent course to a child course, there is one big caveat:
- No link is maintained between the Harmonize content in the parent course and Harmonize content in the child course.
This means you cannot continue to make changes to the Harmonize activity itself in the parent course and push them to the child course. There is still a link between the Canvas assignments, so it is possible to push changes for a few key settings. These include:
- Points (This will only change the points on the Canvas side, but the grade in Harmonize will scale to whatever point total you put in Canvas.)
- Final due date (milestones in Harmonize are calculated relative to this due date and will adjust automatically)
- Anonymous grading (For Canvas users, this setting controls the anonymity of discussions.)
- Assignment category
Moodle
Follow the Three Easy Guidelines for Course Copy and then copy your course in Moodle.
Note: Moodle does not communicate any due dates for external tools. For this reason, you will need to go into each Harmonize discussion and set the final due date in the new course. This is true even when you are creating multiple versions of a single course: the due dates will need to be adjusted independently in each course.
FAQ
Q. Can I copy or duplicate Harmonize activities within the same course?
-
No, please don't! Within a course, you will need to follow the steps to Add a Harmonize Component for each activity you want to create.
- Note: Attempting to copy course content within the same course can cause major problems that are difficult or impossible to resolve. Just don't do it!
Q. Can I copy over posts I, the instructor, made?
- No. Posts, including instructor posts, do not copy over during course copy. You will need to recreate your posts in the new course.