Allow faculty to import/copy Topics from other teacher's classes

When we have multiple faculty teaching different sections of the same course it would be great if they could import the topics to their course from other teachers.

I would like to be able to import Topics from previous years and not have the two be linked so they can edit one without changing the other.

This could also apply to Bulletin Boards.

  • Anthony Trumbo
  • Jul 22 2015
  • Implemented
  • Jun 1, 2016

    Admin response

    Hi All! 

    I am thrilled to announce that with this morning's release, onCampus Topics can now be Shared and/or Copied between Teachers of different sections. We're hoping this vastly improves efficiency and collaboration between faculty members at your school. 

    Here's a video that you can feel free to distribute to your Teachers to explain how the functionality works. 

    https://youtu.be/tImVf-1tvik  

    Let me know if you have any questions. 

    Thanks for voting and commenting on this idea! You've helped us deliver better software!

    Jackie Christensen

    Product Manager, onCampus

  • Attach files
  • Guest commented
    September 05, 2016 03:21

    Thanks!  After just completing another back-to-school round of training and everyone setting up their class pages, it was great to tell the teachers that they could do this!  Much appreciated!

  • Jackie Christensen commented
    June 03, 2016 12:51

    Hi Cindy! 

    Assessments from other Teacher's sections are available to be imported as well. 

    Thanks!

    Jackie

  • Cindy Marston commented
    June 02, 2016 22:01

    Thanks for the clarification! Is there a way to import assessments, or only assignments?

  • Jackie Christensen commented
    June 02, 2016 17:36

    Cindy - Clarification: When you use Add Existing Assignment you can only select one item at a time. However, from Import Assignments a Teacher can select another Teacher from the picker and bulk add multiple Assignments at a time. http://screencast.com/t/aw3hakKNQsoW 

    Ben - My apologies that you didn't get this information previously. We've had the capability for Teachers to copy each other's Assignments/Assessments for a while.  I'm wondering if the term "Share" caused some confusion. The Assignments aren't technically shared between them. Edits are made independently. I also suspect we have some usability issues if you weren't able to discovery this capability on your own. I've been in discussion with my UX designer on how we could improve the Assignment workflow in the future. 

    Thanks!

    Jackie

  • Guest commented
    June 02, 2016 11:46

    Thank you for the update.  When I put in this request last year, I was told that there were no plans to add this feature.  I surprised to get an email recently saying that someone responded to my suggestion.  I wish I would have know about this before.

  • Cindy Marston commented
    June 01, 2016 21:30

    Hi Jackie - thanks for the explanation/clarification about adding existing assignments.  When I tried it, however, I was not able to multi-select assignments to copy.  Whenever I clicked an additional radio button, it would de-select the previous one.  I did try the usual key-combinations to select multiple items, but none worked.  What am I doing wrong?

  • Jackie Christensen commented
    June 01, 2016 20:07

    Hi Ben!

    I have super good news for you! Your Teachers can already copy each other's Assignments and Assessments. When you click Add Assignment you should see an option to Add Existing Assignments in the top header area:

    http://screencast.com/t/EiNHqHuGeR 

    From here you can filter by Teacher and Section and then select Assignments and Assessments to copy over. Use Save and Add Another to add more than one. It is a Copy and not a Share (so updates Teacher B makes will not impact Teacher A's version). 

    It is also possible to copy in another Teacher's Assignments/Assessments from the Assignments Import task. This method allows you to bulk add multiple assignments at once. http://screencast.com/t/aw3hakKNQsoW 

    Is that the functionality you are looking for? Or am I missing something?

    Thanks!

    Jackie

  • Guest commented
    June 01, 2016 19:49

    I was really hoping that you were going to add a feature for sharing individual assignments and assessments.  Sharing topics is not that useful to me.  Are there plans to add a button for sharing assignments with other faculty?

  • Guest commented
    June 01, 2016 19:49

    I was really hoping that you were going to add a feature for sharing individual assignments and assessments.  Sharing topics is not that useful to me.  Are there plans to add a button for sharing assignments with other faculty?

  • Rick Geyer commented
    March 15, 2016 19:22

    I would choose option 1 Jackie, and this would be a very useful feature.

  • Laura Flynn commented
    November 19, 2015 15:53

    Timing for this is important - this is most valuable when a new teacher is hired, or a teacher retires...or when two teachers team-teach. They need to be able to do this during the summer before school starts when they are planning and developing the class materials.

  • Guest commented
    November 18, 2015 20:00

    I was just wishing for this with another English teacher yesterday!

  • Guest commented
    November 18, 2015 19:59

    I just wished this yesterday!

  • Guest commented
    November 17, 2015 15:41

    Yes this would be great.

  • Audrey Peebles commented
    October 21, 2015 19:35

    I wasn't enthused about this idea originally but have rethought.   Could this be made available in the form of a "Topic Bank" by Department?   And do the same thing with assignments if a teacher chooses to set the assignment to "Share"?  Especially thinking of assessment questions.  We have been using this program for almost 2 months and already teachers are asking for this.

    Also agree that it should be a COPY and not a SHARE.   same applies to my ideas above.    Re the question about video sharing - option #2, where they can use but not delete across classes.

  • Guest commented
    October 14, 2015 21:15

     

    There is already a way of accomplishing importing between teachers that I came up with that our school uses.

    I wrote up a whole explanation in the last hour, but have decided not to post my method. There are some drawbacks that I feel will be ignored. 

     

    If you would like a copy of my explanation please email me and I would be happy to share it with you. My hope is that the extra step of having to email me will discourage those that would not properly inform their teachers of the drawbacks.

     

    Thank you for your time,

    Donald Bauch

    bauchd@ndnj.org

     

    P.S. Without being properly informed, there will be issues of stepping on toes and possible deletion of work. This will eventually cause a backlash of uninformed or ill informed teachers/staff requesting for the "problem to be fixed". The functionality will be "fixed" and my teachers will suffer. I just had this happened to Assessments where the re-takes functionality was changed. There was no need for the change, there is a better method currently available, but evidently enough schools complained and it was easier to "fix" it then for schools to information their teachers on how to the Copy Assessments button.

    It has crippled the use of Assessments as a formative assessment tool and reduces its use to purely summative. (Shameful plug: Please vote for my change @ https://blackbaudk12.ideas.aha.io/ideas/K12OC-I-812 ) 

     

     

     

     

     

  • Guest commented
    September 25, 2015 16:01

    Hi Jackie, Of your two options, I like option 2. My spanish teachers share a lot of videos on topics..... However, we use content editor access groups to allow groups of teachers to post to each other's pages and share assignments and other resources. Why couldn't one of the content categories within those content editor access groups be Topics? Then you don't have to make hidden co-teachers, etc.

    Just a thought! Thanks for considering this!

  • Guest commented
    September 09, 2015 18:17

    Hi Jackie, I think another option would be to allow us to set up co-teaching relationships that are not visible on rosters so we can share topics content easily without having to have multiple teachers listed  on a course section. So maybe behind the scenes, all of the science teachers are "colleagues" who can share content but don't have to be listed on each others' section rosters.

  • Guest commented
    September 09, 2015 13:40

    Hi All!

    I agree - opening up Topics to allow for Teacher sharing would be phenomenal! Imagine the efficiencies and innovation that could take place if Teachers could share these resources?! Makes my arm hairs go up. 

    For those of you that attended my Road Map session at UC15, I actually have this initiative at the bottom of the 2015 Road Map. However, this idea gets hung up in technical conversations around two items that I would love your feedback on:

    • Are we all in agreement that this would be a COPY of a Topic. So once copied it would be a unique instance of the content. If Teachers need to SHARE Topics then they both need to be on the Class Roster as an Owner (Co-Teachers). Make sense?

    • The exception to rule #1 is Video that has been uploaded directly to the Topic using the video content type (not Embeds). We have some technical limitations that prevent us from making copies of those videos. Overhauling the current set up to allow for video copies would be a pretty heavy technical lift that the team can't take on right now given other priorities. 

    So here are the options I see (at least for our first pass at this):

    1. Could your Teachers live with Videos that were added directly to a Topic (not Embeds) NOT being included when importing another Teacher's Topics?

    2. OR would your Teachers prefer those Videos get included but NOT being able to delete them from their copy of the Topic since it would also remove them from the master copy of the Topic?

    What do you think? 1 or 2? 

    Thanks!

    Jackie

     

  • Timothy Dougherty commented
    August 29, 2015 01:18

    Good Lord, please do this.  It's the Holy Grail. 

  • Load older comments
  • +64