Course Rollover

Introduction

Course rollover is the annual process whereby Blackboard courses from the current academic year are copied for use in the next academic year.

Key dates: 8th July and 30th June 2023

Brief summary

Course copying and the creation of new Blackboard courses will take place on Saturday 8th July 2023, with additional tasks completed over the following week. Blackboard will be unavailable to staff and students from 09:00 to 17:00 BST on 8th July.

If you would like to make any changes such as “request an early course rollover, or opt out“, all requests should be submitted by close of play on Friday 30th June.

The default position for Course Rollover is that any RISIS module or programme (a) which was used in Blackboard in the current academic year (i.e. in 2022/23), and (b) is scheduled to run again in the new academic year (i.e. in 2023/24) will be automatically copied forward as part of Course Rollover. The vast majority of Blackboard courses normally fall in this category, and no action is required for these courses to be rolled forward.

Merged and Supplementary courses are also copied as part of Course Rollover. See details below.

What action do I need to take?

Module Convenors: In most cases, your course will be copied forward automatically. But please check if your course is scheduled to be copied by searching the Course Copy Status page. If any changes need to be made, please take appropriate action – see below.

Blackboard courses for a single RISIS module
- Check course rollover status
- Request early rollover (if you need to start preparing course before 8th July)
- Opting out
Merged and Supplementary courses
- Merged courses (requesting changes)
- Supplementary courses (requesting changes)
RISIS modules
What will be copied?
After rollover?
- Preparing your courses for the new academic year

Blackboard courses for a single RISIS module

Check course rollover status

If your Blackboard course is used in 2022/23, and has been scheduled to run in 2023/24, then the 2022/23 course should be copied automatically to 2023/24 version on 8th July. However, just to be absolutely sure that your module is scheduled to rollover, please

Go to Course Copy Status page
Search for the module code and check that it is SCHEDULED.
If so, no further action required.
If not, check with Programme Admin that the module is scheduled to run in RISIS.

Request early rollover

If it is essential to have your 2023/24 Blackboard course created before the main Rollover day on 8th July

Go to the Status page.
Search for the module code.
If it shows as SCHEDULED, click “Opt Out”.
Then submit a Course Copy Request.
In the “Additional Comments” section of the Course Copy form please add a comment e.g. ‘Early rollover please’ or ‘Needed by <date>’

Please note:

Please only request early course rollover, where it is absolutely necessary to have the new course available before the actual course rollover date.

No student enrolments will be pulled through from RISIS until the new academic year begins in August. Students will be enroled manually, or batch enrolments can be requested.

Opting out

You may wish to opt out (i.e. cancelling a scheduled course copy) of course copying for a number of reasons.

You want to redesign your Blackboard course, so prefer to build your 2023/24 course from an empty course shell.
The merged course you have been using, no longer required, i.e. want to have separate Blackboard courses for the individual modules.
Supplementary course you have been using, no longer required.

To opt out

Go to the Course Copy Status page and search for your Blackboard course.
If a course copy is already scheduled to take place, then SCHEDULED will appear in the ‘Status’ column.
Press the Opt Out button in the final column.
A confirmation message appears. If you are sure you want to proceed, press OK.
You will see a confirmation page. If you return to the Status page you’ll see that OPTEDOUT now appears in the ‘Status’ column.

We have not restricted the Course Copy or Opt Out forms to Module Convenors. But clearly these decisions are the Module Convenor’s prerogative / responsibility. We would expect action to be taken only by the Module Convenor or someone acting on their behalf – for instance by a Programme Administrator, after discussion with the Module Convenor.

Merged and Supplementary courses

Both Merged and Supplementary Courses will be copied forward by default.

If you want your 2023/24 Merged or Supplementary course to be set up exactly the same as your 2022/23 course, no action is required.
But please visit the Course Copy Status page to check that your course is scheduled to be copied.

If one or more of the ‘child’ modules in your Merged course will not be running, you may have to manually request a course copy – please see the Merged Course Examples below.

If you want to change which ‘child’ modules are included in your Merged or Supplementary course, you will need to cancel the scheduled copy, and manually request a new course copy – please see What if I need to make any changes? below.

Merged courses

Used when you have a set of closely related RISIS modules, and you want to administer them as a single course in Blackboard.
A Merged Course always replaces the Blackboard courses for individual RISIS modules.
Merged Courses are supported by the EMA Integration and can be used for summative assessment.
A Merged Course is not appropriate if the same students are enrolled on more than one of the modules being merged.
Merged courses for 2022/23 modules look like this in Blackboard: AB1XYZ-22-3MOD Advanced Basket weaving (Merged 2022/23)
The ‘Parent’ course uses the module code from one of the ‘Child’ modules – normally the first in alphanumeric sequence.
Please note that the module code used does not affect what students see in Blackboard – see How do students see merged courses?

The default position is that any Merged course which meets following criteria will be automatically copied forward as part of course rollover;

used in Blackboard in the current academic year (i.e. in 2022/23)

and where the module designated as the ‘Parent’ course is scheduled to run again in the new academic year (i.e. in 2023/24)

and has at least one Instructor or Teaching Assistant enrolled

Merged Course Examples – AB1XYZ-22-3MOD merges AB1XYZ and AB1XXX.

AB1XYZ (‘Parent’ module) running in 2023/24?	AB1XXX (‘Child’ module) running in 2023/24?	Result in Blackboard
Y	Y	AB1XYZ-22-3MOD will be copied forward to AB1XYZ-23-4 MOD. 2023/24 taught occurrences of both AB1XYZ and AB1XXX will be included in the new course.
Y	N	AB1XYZ-22-3MOD will be copied forward to AB1XYZ-23-4 MOD. 2023/24 taught occurrences of AB1XYZ will be included in the new course.
N	Y	AB1XYZ-22-3MOD will NOT be copied forward. AB1XXX-23-4MOD will be set up as a blank course shell – but you can submit a request to have it created as a copy of AB1XYZ-22-3MOD

What if I need to make any changes?

If you want your course to be copied, but there is a change to the modules which need to be included in the Merged Course, you will need to do the following:

Go to the Course Copy Status page and cancel the scheduled copy by Opting out.

Go to the Course Copy Request form and request a new course copy, with the correct module details. When filling out the form, select ‘Merged’ in both the Source and Destination drop-down boxes.

If you do not want your Merged Course to be copied, you can submit a request to have the course copy cancelled – see Opting out above.

Supplementary Courses

Used when you want a shared Blackboard space in addition to individual RISIS modules or programmes.

Supplementary courses look like this in Blackboard – ACADSPPT-22-3SUP Academic Support (2022/23)

The default position is that any Supplementary course which meets the following criteria will be automatically copied forward as part of course rollover;

which was used in Blackboard in the current academic year (i.e. in 2022/23)
and has at least one Instructor or Teaching Assistant enrolled

What if I need to make any changes?

If you want your course to be copied, but there is a change to the modules or programmes which need to be included in the Supplementary Course, you will need to do the following:

Go to the Course Copy Status page and cancel the scheduled copy by Opting out.

Go to the Course Copy Request form and request a new course copy, with the correct module / programme details. When filling out the form, select ‘Supplementary’ in both the Source and Destination drop-down boxes.

If you do not want your Supplementary Course to be copied, you can submit a request to have the course copy cancelled – see Opting out above.

Please note that

Supplementary Courses are designed for use in addition to individual RISIS modules or programmes.

Supplementary Courses should not be used to deliver summative assessment, as this is not supported by the EMA Blackboard-RISIS integration.

RISIS modules

Modules which did not run in current year

If your module did not run this year, but you wish to have the 2021/22 Blackboard course copied forward, please submit a Course Copy Request, selecting ‘Single’ as both the Source and Destination course type.

Brand-new modules

Any module which is scheduled in RISIS to run in 2023/24 will automatically generate a new Blackboard course, and the Module Convenor listed in RISIS will be automatically enrolled on the Blackboard course. No action is required.

Change of module code

If your module has been assigned a new RISIS code, but the content is substantially the same, you may want to copy content from an existing Blackboard course.
Please submit a Course Copy Request

Select

‘Single’ as both the Source and Destination course type
‘Select a Source Course’ – enter the module code for the course you want to be copied
choose the required academic year
‘Destination Course Code’ – enter the new module code

Blackboard course codes explained

Any Blackboard course which represents one or more RISIS module occurrences has a course code in the format AB1XYZ-22-3MOD.

This applies to Blackboard courses bringing together multiple occurrences of the same module, as well as ‘merged courses’ which combine two or more distinct module codes.

The technical details – for those who want to know more.

See a list of Blackboard course codes in use.

Blackboard courses for Programmes

There are no changes to how these are handled as part of rollover.

Please see Using Blackboard for Programme delivery

Which parts of my course will be copied?

Course content:

All course content will be copied.
Video content:
- Embedded links to YuJa videos will be copied.
- Videos uploaded directly into Blackboard will be copied, but these also should be transferred to YuJa.
Blackboard Tests and Surveys will be copied, but NOT deployed to users (made available to users) – you will need to deploy them with appropriate settings on the new course.
Talis reading list links will be copied, but you will need to configure them for use by students in the new academic year.
Teams Meeting links for live online sessions will be copied – these need to be deleted and new links created.

User enrolments:

All Instructors, Teaching Assistants, Course Builders and External Examiners will be copied during the summer course rollover.
In addition, all staff who are listed as a 2023/24 Module Convenor in RISIS will be enrolled onto the corresponding Blackboard course. This applies equally to courses which were copied, and to courses which are set up as a blank shell. If you are a Module Convenor for a module which runs both in Reading and Malaysia, you will see all, 2023/24 occurrences of the module in Blackboard.
No other users will be copied.
Groups will not be copied.

Important!

Staff members no longer involved in course delivery – Inevitably, given that we copy staff enrolments forward each year, many Blackboard courses have enrolments for staff members who are no longer involved in delivery of the module.

There are various workarounds to prevent such enrolments being copied to 2023/24 courses:

Senior Programme Administrators in the Support Centres are able to delete staff enrolments

any Instructor or Teaching Assistant on the course can set a user’s course status as Unavailable

if you are no longer involved with course delivery, you can set your own enrolment status as Unavailable.

Please note: course rollover does not affect your 2022/23 course at all – available courses will remain available in Blackboard after they have been copied, with the same content and the same enrolments.

What will not be copied?

Blackboard and Turnitin LTI Assignments will not be copied.
Announcements, discussion boards, blogs, journals and wikis will not be copied.

Important!

The creation of summative submission points is controlled by the EMA Integration between RISIS and Blackboard, and managed by Programme Administration teams. Module Convenors, please liaise with your programme administrator to confirm assessment requirements for your module. You will need to create any formative submission points with appropriate settings on the new course.

When will students be enrolled on courses?

From the start of August, students who are already enrolled on 2022/23 courses in RISIS will be enrolled on the corresponding Blackboard course.

After rollover

Preparing your courses for the new academic year

See our guide Getting Ready for the New Year.

Blackboard plays an essential part in the delivery of teaching, learning and assessment. A series of Online teaching toolkits have been prepared, covering all the essential aspects of effective digital teaching. In particular, please look at the toolkit on How to structure your Blackboard course.

Please DO NOT SET OLD COURSES AS UNAVAILABLE – it has been agreed by DELT that students should continue to have access to all of the Blackboard courses relevant to their programme of study i.e. a final undergraduate student should still be able to access their Blackboard courses from Parts 1 and 2. This is so that they can access course materials and all feedback received from staff.

Support and Feedback

You will find answers to some technical queries by searching for YuJa in the Service Desk Knowledge Base.

If you need further assistance, please feel free to raise a support ticket via the Self Service Portal.

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