You must link every course offering to a course template, which connects it to a parent org unit (for example, a department). Use templates to group related offerings (e.g., all History 101 sections) to streamline enrollment, course creation, and ongoing administration.
Treat the template as a library. Settings do not inherit automatically, but you can share or copy items from the template to course offerings. Shareable items include:
- Themes
- Navigation
- Links and link groups
- Competencies
- Rubrics
- Remote plugins
- External learning tools (ELTs)
- ePortfolio forms
Manage these items in the template only.
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Important: Avoid using templates as libraries. They are hard to access from the Course Selector and My Courses widget and add enrollment/admin overhead. Instead, create a blueprint course offering to store and share reusable content. You can attach multiple course offerings to one template. Because the department is set on the template (not the offering), all attached offerings share the same department.
Create templates and offerings by:
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Reasons to use course templates
Using a course template lets you keep a blueprint set of course components separate from individual offerings. You can customize each class without affecting future offerings.
Decide what to store in the template
- If all offerings are unique (never the same course twice): Create a minimal template (for org unit/department linkage). Build and configure components in each course offering.
- If you re-offer the same course each term and reuse tools/files/content: Build and store the standard components in the course template. Use Copy Components to bring them into each offering. Refer to About Import/Export/Copy Components for more information.
- If you mainly reuse content across different courses (mix-and-match): Use Brightspace Learning Repository to store/share content, or use Copy Components to copy content directly between offerings. Refer to Manage Local Repositories for more information.
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Note: When copying from templates, keep content accessible. Use clear headings, meaningful link text, and alt text so each offering remains inclusive. |
What you can store in a template
You can store almost any component that can be added to a course offering inside a course template so that it may be reused for multiple offerings of the same course.
The following components can be created, modified, and stored inside a course template:
- Assignments
- Attendance Registers
- Calendar Events
- Checklist
- Competencies
- Content
- Course Files
- Discussions
- External Links
- FAQs
- Glossary
- Grades
- Groups
- Homepages
- Navigation Bars
- Announcements
- Question Library
- Registration Forms
- Rubrics
- Calendar
- Self Assessments
- Tool Display Names
- Widgets
- External Learning Tool Links
- External Learning Tool Providers
You can also maintain Quicklinks between components, release conditions, and links between your grade book and other tools.
Sharing versus copying components
Share when you need one source of truth that updates everywhere.
- Supported tools: Rubrics and Competencies (shared to offerings under the template; new offerings get them automatically, and edits propagate).
Copy when offerings may differ or you want a point-in-time snapshot.
- Use Copy Components to bring items from the template into each course offering.
Best practices for using course templates
- Associate every course offering with one course template.
- Use one template per course; attach multiple offerings (one per term/section) to that template.
- If two offerings are effectively the same course, attach them to the same template.
- Store reusable tools and content in the template; copy them into offerings as needed.
- Customize components in an offering without changing the template or other offerings.
- When an offering improves the course, copy those changes back to the template for future use.
Best practices: Add a new course to Brightspace using a course template
The following section describes the best practices and suggested order to create and add a new course to Brightspace using Course Templates.
To add a new course to Brightspace using a template
- Create a new course template: Create the course template first. Name and code it as the standard for the course (for example, Introduction to Science and Technology, ST100). Organize files with a clear path, such as: /content/<department>/<course template>/<course session>. Example: /content/Science and Technology/ST100/ST100_Fall2012.
- Configure reusable components in the template: In the template, set up content, grade book, release conditions, discussions, and the question library you’ll reuse in every offering. You can copy from other templates/offerings or import from a file.
- Create a course offering based on your template: Create a new course offering based on the template. Use the course name plus a term/section (for example, Introduction to Science and Technology Fall 2012) and a code like ST100_Fall2012. Follow the same folder pattern used above.
- Copy components into the course offering: After the offering is created, open Copy or Import Course Components on the Summary page to go to Import/Export/Copy Components, then select the items to copy from the template.
- Activate the course homepage and navigation bar and enable tools: If you copied a custom homepage or navbar, open Course Administration to activate them. Enable any copied tools that aren’t on by default.
Best practices: Create a standard setup for an existing course
If you have already been using Brightspace without maintaining standard course components within course templates, it is easy to establish standard configurations for your existing courses.
Apply a standard naming convention:
- Rename the current course template to the course name (for example, Introduction to Science and Technology).
- Rename the latest course offering to the course name plus term/section (for example, Introduction to Science and Technology Fall 2012).
- Use this scheme for all future offerings.
Use a standard convention for file paths
- Template: /content/<department>/<course template>/
- Offering: /content/<department>/<course template>/<term or section>/
- Example: /content/Science_and_Technology/ST100/ST100_Fall2012/
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Note: This keeps reusable, “standard” components in the template and separates them from offering-specific files. |
Create the standard course setup inside the course template
- In the template, open Copy or Import Course Components > Import/Export/Copy Components and copy from the most recent offering (or other sources).
- Update and organize components you’ll reuse every term (content, grade book, discussions, question library, or release conditions).
Create a new course offering based on the updated template
- Create a new course offering based on the updated template.
- Use a name like Course Name + Term/Section and a code like ST100_Fall2012.