Thanks, Colin - that's very useful! Let me just check that I'm understanding: the idea is that the parent course acts as a kind of repository, from which the child courses pull their material?
I shall go and read the meta links documentation forthwith, and then do some experimenting. This is one of those things where if I get it right at the beginning, I can save everyone a lot of work and pain - but if I get it wrong, I can make a dog's breakfast of the whole thing.
Thanks again.
--- Les