Multiple Instances of the same course

Multiple Instances of the same course

by Scott DuVall -
Number of replies: 9

Can any one point me to resources containing the following information?  Thank you!

In a regular university, a course with the same curriculum will be taught at different times or by different teachers.  Are there any ways to have a course in Moodle have sections - where the same content and curriculum (the same course) is available as COURSE1-1 starting June 17, 2004 and COURSE1-2 starting June 20, 2004.

And how would you 'start over' the next semester with the same course?  Do you have to delete the student information from the last semester to have that data and student enrollment not affect the next semester COURSE1-1 starting August 3, 2004?

Thanks for your help!

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In reply to Scott DuVall

Re: Multiple Instances of the same course

by Gustav W Delius -
This is done by the backup and restore buttons in the administration block on the course home page. If you have a course of which you want to create a second instance or a new copy without students you first backup the course. You then restore it and during the restore process choose the option to restore it into a new course and to not include user data. After having restored the content into a new course you can change the settings of the new course, for example to reflect the different start time.
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In reply to Scott DuVall

Re: Multiple Instances of the same course

by Leon Harris -
Hi Scott.
The way we used to handle that was to make multiple copies of the course.

Suppose that the university taught semester1, semester 2, trimester 1, trimester 2, trimester 3, summer.  You could have a standard set of abbreviations for this:S1,S2,T1,T2,T3,SU.
So your courses would be A101S1, A101T1 etc.

In general terms, it is a good idea to keep a "master backup" of a course and create copies of it for each semester. It is also good to archive the old course, student data and all at the end of the course, as there are issues such as appeals, and fraud discipline which only emerge later.

In the university where I was involved with (hawk, cough, spit) WebCT, we used to run course population scripts at the start of semester, and backup scripts at the end. The educational designers kept the originals. Then it is a question of writing a script to query the course and enrollment option for the student, and putting them in the right course. Unfortunately, in our case this meant having to have a layer of script between the university's student database and the Worst Ever Bloody Courseware Tripe.

disclaimer: WebCT is a lot nicer now than then(v2.0), and it probably doesn't get corrupted when you put punctuation in the students surname -eg "O'Connor". You probably also don't get byteorder problems when you try to back up a course on a solarus box and restore it on a linux box (gotta love those nasty dbm databases inside it). I'm sure that now its internal chatserver restarts when it is shut down uncleanly. It was the best for its time, but gee it was ugly.


Leon
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In reply to Leon Harris

Re: Multiple Instances of the same course

by Lester Herran -
I'm running into the same situation, but with a bit of a twist.

We often have two concurrent identical courses, and students sometimes want to transfer from one to another.

What would be the best way of handling this. I would like to transfer all the the assignments, attendance records, and marks that the student had completed in one course into the other course.

Lester.
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In reply to Lester Herran

Re: Multiple Instances of the same course

by Hans de Zwart -
Hello Lester,

I don't see an easy solution in trying to transfer all the students data. The assignments that the students did in course A might look the same as the parallel assignment in course B for the teachers/students but isn't the same to the Moodle system.

Can I ask you why you have two courses running concurrently. Does that give you some flexibility  that the current group functionality can't provide you? With groups you would have one course and two concurrent groups doing the course. I think switching in the way that you are asking would be possible then.

Just read a little bit in the Group forum to see how you could use it.
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In reply to Hans de Zwart

Re: Multiple Instances of the same course

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Good question Scott, its a question I had asked myself.
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In reply to Hans de Zwart

Re: Multiple Instances of the same course

by Lester Herran -
In our language school the only thing that admin wants is attendance, and four scores for proficiency, participation, homework and quiz for each week.  These scores are required from each course regardless of content.

If a student outperforms, they may be promoted to the next level mid cycle.  Also there is some switching between electives mid way through a cycle also. 

While individual classes may have quite different content, all the beancounters care about are the four scores and attendance being maintained.

I guess I could just create one class for the whole school and then assign each course as a group, but it seems to be an ugly hack.

Lester


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In reply to Hans de Zwart

Re: Multiple Instances of the same course

by Chris Ainsworth -
If you are required to retain evidence for a course - module - subject as you are required by law say in Aust - then you woul need a seperate course for each group. If you don't need to retain the evidence  of a student's participation, then you could use the group process. 
Where I need to retain the material for a formal award, I am now backing up the material.  I am required to keep all the evidence and a means to access that evidence (if it is not paper based) for several years and in one instance the requirement is 30 years. How I am overcoming this is looking at the Moodle on a Stick process (fully documented) or maybe have just that evidence burned onto a CD as a standalone archival method for the course. 
Peopl eneed to be very much aware of the legal implications and audit processes for "on-line" delivery and student participation.
Just a couple more thoughts on the process.
Chris A
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In reply to Scott DuVall

Re: Multiple Instances of the same course

by W Page -
Hi Scott!

This has also been a question I was going to ask.  It is a situation which occurs in schools a lot.  I would prefer to have different sections of a course as different courses in a category.  For example category Living Environment  with class 123 and class 456 as two different courses (classes)  that are given at different times of the day with Labs given on different days.

There seems to be an interest in this type of feature.  Suggest you put it in as a request at the "BUG" area of Moodle located at,
http://moodle.org/bugs/

WP1
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