Introduction
The Import function allows you to copy (import) some or all content from another course where you're enrolled with the Teacher role, excluding all user data. This provides you with a "clean" copy of an existing course you've taught that has all of the course activities you've created (like assignments, quizzes, and forums), as well as your gradebook, without any student data (like assignment submissions, quiz attempts, forum posts, or student grades). Instructors use import to:
- Reuse course content from a course you taught in a previous semester.
- Duplicate a course you're building into additional sections you're teaching.
- Import/copy an individual activity or resource from one course to another.
Imports only add content
The Import function can only add content into a course. It cannot replace or delete existing content.
This article covers how to import all content from another course you've taught. You must import all course content to preserve any existing gradebook settings.
Import is available when you teach the same course within a 25-month period. You can only use the Import process when you can still see the old course on AsULearn in a past (or current) term.
If it's been more than two years since you taught a course, you'll need to upload and restore a personal backup of that course. Faculty receive multiple communications prior to a course being removed from AsULearn, encouraging them to create and save a course backup. See Course Access and Retention for more information on the backup and restore processes.
The Import process preserves the location of all content it copies. This means Import will copy content from Topic 1 of the source course you're copying from, into Topic 1 of the destination course you're copying into.
Import, or Backup & Restore?
Q: When should I use Import instead of the Backup & Restore process?
A: It's always faster and easier to use the Import process. But to use Import, the course has to be available to you currently in AsULearn. That means that it cannot be more than 25 months since the beginning of the semester in which you taught it. Since courses more than two years old are removed from the server, the Import process is not available for them. Basically, if you can find the old course in AsULearn in a past term, you can import it - so long as you role in the course is Teacher!
That said, you should create and download a backup of each course you teach at the end of the semester in which you taught it. That way, if there's a greater than two-year gap before you teach it again, you can upload and restore your backup in a matter of seconds and get back to work, no support ticket required!
Using the Import feature
1. Open the AsULearn course you're importing content into.
2. In the settings bar at the top of your course, click More, then select "Course reuse" from the dropdown menu.
3. The Course Reuse page consolidates all the options for reusing previously created course content, including import, backup, and restore. To use the import process, select Import from the dropdown menu in the top-left corner of the page.
The list of courses on this page is limited to 10 courses at at time. If you don't see the course you're looking for, use the Search box at the bottom of the page to find it.
Finding your course(s)
You may want to search by term to find a specific version of the course you want to import. For example, searching for "Fall 2023" will limit your results to the Fall 2023 courses you taught. You can also find all available versions of a course by searching for its number, like "2300". General terms are better than more specific ones in this case.
Still don't see the course you're looking for? Check the AsULearn Course Access and Retention policy for a reminder.
4. Once you've found the exact course you wish to import, select its radio button, then click Continue:
5. On the next page, click the "Jump to final step" button.
Please only click this button once, then wait for the process to complete. Most imports only last a few seconds, but some may take several minutes. Larger courses and courses with larger question banks tend to take longer to import.
Clicking the "Jump to final step" button more than once may result in multiple copies of your content being imported into your current course.
