What to do with courses, templates, and sections Before the Semester Starts

New Term Checklist

Shortly before each semester begins a blank SECTION (the live course you will teach) will be created for you. You will then have to decide which TEMPLATE you want to assign to your SECTION. This is an easy process which you will repeat at the start of each new term.

• Associate the template you want to teach with to your Course. (This process makes the template available to be assigned (copied down) to the new section that is created for you shortly before the new semester begins.
• Assign the template you want to teach with to your section.

First, you must associate the template you want to use with the COURSE (the COURSE houses all your templates).

Any template you may wish to assign to the SECTION (live class) you teach must first be associated with the COURSE (houses all your templates). The template you want to assign may already be associated with the COURSE or it may not. You can check this easily.

• from your MyWebCT page click on the title of the COURSE you want to work with (e.g. American Legal History)
• click the View Associated Templates button
• you next see a list of templates already associated with your COURSE
• if you wish to ADD any to this list, click the Associate Templates button
   

Second, once the TEMPLATE you want to use is associated with the COURSE, you assign the TEMPLATE to the SECTION.

BEFORE YOU CLICK ON THE SECTION LEVEL, please be sure the template you want to assign to the SECTION has been associated with the COURSE. If you have more than one template but only one of them is associated with the COURSE that template by default will be assigned to your SECTION whether or not it is the one you wish to assign.

When you are sure the template you want to assign to the SECTION (if you have more than one template), is associated with the COURSE, click on the SECTION level. You will be asked which template you want to assign. Choose the template you want to assign. Click SAVE.

Remember, if you have only a single template associated with your COURSE, that template will be assigned to your SECTION automatically when you click on the SECTION title.

I made a mistake and need to assign a different TEMPLATE to my SECTION.
Please remember that reassigning a template will remove content, student activity data, and grades from the SECTION. At this time there is no way for faculty to reassign a template themselves. Please fill out a request for a template reassignment form.

Using Your SECTION Content for Another Semester
If you made significant changes to your SECTION and you will want to use the SECTION as your template for the next semester:

• Click on the COURSE title on your myWebCT page
• From the Template Manager tab, locate the SECTION you want to use as a template and click on the title (Note: There will be a folder to the left of the SECTION title.)
• Under ACTIONS, click the COPY icon
• In the pop-up window, name the new template. We recommend that the template title be the COURSE number followed by the instructor’s last name and the semester the SECTION was used, for example, HST333E - Smith - Spring05
• Click the Paste button
• Decide if the template is to be public or private

Click Save

How do I combine multiple SECTIONs into a single website?
Please call our Instructional Designer at x67117 for instructions.