Copying Course Content from one Brightspace Course to Another and Offsetting Due Dates

Audience: Faculty

This KB Article References: Brightspace
This Information is Intended for: Faculty
Last Updated: November 16, 2023
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Blackboard content from Fall 2021 - Spring 2023 is available in Brightspace. If you need content from older courses, you can export your content quickly and easily. See the video and instructions here. Please note that student data will not transfer from course to course. 

If your course was taught prior to Fall 2021 OR you need access to a course that is not in Blackboard (because it’s older than 3 years) contact support by creating a service ticket at service.stonybrook.edu with the course Name, Course ID, Section # and Semester that you need.

Important Checklist:
1.  Use Chrome or Firefox for Copy/Export/Import in Brightspace (Safari doesn't work as expected when copying/exporting/importing).
2.  Take care when copying over Announcements.  This might reveal content that you do not want students to see yet.
3.  Prior to copying over course materials, please ensure your target course is NOT visible to students.

How to copy content from one Brightspace course to another

Be sure to see the last step in this tutorial on offsetting your dates in Course Tools > Course Admin > Manage Dates.
  1. In a web browser sign into Brightspace and click into the course you want to add content into by clicking the course selector icon at the top select a course and selecting the course
    Tip: Use Chrome or Firefox (avoid Safari for copy/export/import)
  2. Once in the course you want to move content to, in the top right click on the Gear and select Import/Export/Copy Component
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  3. Under "What would you like to do?", make sure "Copy Components from another Org Unit" is selected and then click Search for offering. This will allow you to search for a course to pull material from. 
    Tip: In Brightspace, Org Unit = course
    ""
  4. In the Select Course Offering window, you can leave the box blank and click Search to see all the courses you have available to copy from OR type in a course ID or keyword from the course name to narrow your results. 
    Tip: Type in STB to find all of your archived course copy courses from Blackboard.
  5. Choose a course and then click Add Selected
    ""
  6. Back in the Import/Export/Copy Components screen you will see your course to copy.
    " "
  7. Click Select Components and on the Choose Components to Copy page, then check off  Select all Components except for Announcements (to avoid sending emails to any students enrolled in the destination course) and anything else you wish not to carry over.
  8. Click Continue and Finish.

Now you'll want to offset your dates for the new semester. Go to Course Tools > Course Admin > Manage Dates to offset your start-, end- and due-dates. See the video on

Manage Dates in Brightspace

Learn more about Offsetting dates here

Next, organize your grade book in your course, which may require you to delete grade items that were moved over. To do so, check out this article. 

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