Course Templates

Overview

Course Templates enable users with appropriate permissions to create and distribute a Course Template to Course Sections in Schoology. Users can create a course template when they have multiple courses that will follow the same setup and display. Course templates can be applied to multiple sections, and may contain course materials that will be shared across those sections. 

Create a Course Template

1. Navigate to My Courses and click on Course Templates.
2. Click Create Course Template.
3. Fill in the fields for:
   1. Name
   2. Type
   3. Subject Area
   4. Level
   5. Grading Periods
4. Click Create.

• Additional members can be added to a Course Template by clicking Add Members from the Course Template. A member's access to Course Templates depends on their permissions.
• Access to Add Members depends on the permissions tied to your account. 

Add Materials to a Course Template

From the newly created course template:

1. Click Add Materials.
2. Select a material to add to the course template from the drop-down menu.
3. Fill in the fields from the modal.
4. Save the material type.

Some items can not be used with Course Templates:

• Apps are excluded from creation in Course Templates
• External tools can not be added to Course Templates

Duplicate a Course Template

To duplicate a Course Template:

1. Navigate to My Courses, and click on the Course Templates tab. 
2. Click the Settings icon. 
3. Select Duplicate from the settings drop-down menu. 
4. Verify the Course Template information, and click Duplicate from the pop-up window.

Publish to Sections

Search for Course Sections

Before you publish your Course Template, you can search for Course Sections to ensure you are publishing your template to the correct section. Only active courses will appear in the search results. You can search for Course Sections from either within the Course Template page, or from the Course Template tab within the My Courses page.

• Search results will only return Course Sections that:
  • The user has access to.
  • Do not already have a course template published to them.
• After a Course Template has been published to a Course Section it cannot be undone.

To search for Course Sections within the Course Template page:

1. From the Course Options drop-down within the course template, click Publish to Sections.
2. Use the search panel to search for any of the following criteria for a section, or click Browse all sections to display a list of all the courses the user has access to.
   1. School
   2. Course Name
   3. Course Code
   4. Section Code
   5. Section Name
   6. Subject Area
   7. Level
   8. Grading Period
   9. Instructor Last Name
   10. Instructor First Name
3. Check the box to select the course(s) you want to publish to. Click Select All to select all the course sections. Linked sections will display with the course name, and if selected, the course template will be published to each linked section.
   

   

4. Click Review.
5. Once you have confirmed the courses displayed are the ones you want to publish the course template to, click Publish to Sections. (This action cannot be undone.)
6. Click Proceed, then click Done.

To search for Course Sections from the Course Template tab within the My Courses page:

1. From the desired Course Template, click the gear icon.
2. Select Publish to Sections from the drop-down menu.
3. Use the search panel to search for any of the following criteria for a section, or click Browse all sections to display a list of all the courses the user has access to.
   1. School
   2. Course Name
   3. Course Code
   4. Section Code
   5. Section Name
   6. Subject Area
   7. Level
   8. Grading Period
   9. Instructor Last Name
   10. Instructor First Name
4. Check the box to select the course(s) you want to publish to. Click Select All to select all the course sections. Linked sections will display with the course name, and if selected, the course template will be published to each linked section.
   

   

5. Click Review.
6. Once you have confirmed the courses displayed are the ones you want to publish the course template to, click Publish to Sections. (This action cannot be undone.)
7. Click Proceed, then click Done.

• If there are any changes to course parameters or a template is published, then the list of courses for selection may take up to 15 minutes to reflect the updated status.
• Only one Course Template can be published to a Course Section. 

Details of What Elements/Attributes Publish with Course Templates

When a Course Template is published certain elements and attributes are published with it, while others are not. The following table outlines which course elements and attributes are supported and not supported by Course Templates.

Materials

Grade Setup

Only users with permissions to access the grade setup will be able to access grade setup features. 

Feature	Supported/Not Supported
Grading Categories - Add new / Update weights	Supported
Grading Periods & Final Weights	NOT Supported
Gradebook Scale	Supported
Calculated Grades: Round Period/Final Grades	Supported
Course override column	Supported
Grade period override columns	Supported
Total points column	Supported
Allow members to view the student grade report	Supported
Hide overall grade in student grade report	Supported
Hide grading period grades in student grade report	Supported
Hide total points achieved in student grade report	Supported
Display only text in score displays	Supported
Allow faculty to view student mastery details	Supported
Allow members to view student mastery details	Supported
Add/Edit Scale	Supported
Add/Edit Rubrics	Supported
Set Default Scale	Supported

Course Settings and Options

From the published confirmation page, once you have published your course template, you can check the publication status by clicking Transfer History.

From the Transfer History page, you can review your past course template publishes, and their status.

Course Template Status

A user can access the Course Template status from the Information section of a course where a Course Template has been published. The Course Template status indicates to the user the date that their course was synced to the Course Template, and who published the Course Template to that particular course.

Republish Course Templates

Course Templates can be republished to course sections. Republishing allows an administrator to add new materials, folders, or settings to the Course Template and pass it on to the course sections it has already been published to. 

Materials and Folders

When a Course Template is republished, any newly added materials and folders will be included in the course sections where the template was previously published. The materials and folders will display in the same order as they are in the template. If materials are reordered in a Course Template and then republished, the new order of the template will be transferred to the relevant course section. Even if a teacher has rearranged the materials or added their own, the template materials will take precedence after republishing. This means that any teacher-added materials will be placed below the template materials.

Grade Setup

When a new grading category is added and republished it will be pushed to the course whether it has a material attached to it or not.

Grade Setup items and updates to old materials that were already published will not be included in the updates when a template is republished to a course.

When a new grading scale or rubric is added and republished without any new material linked to it, it will not be pushed to the course. However, if a new scale or rubric is attached to a new material, then it will also get published along with the material.

Deleted Items

If an item deleted from a course, still exists in a Course Template, then it will be added again to the course when a republish is done. 

Items deleted from a Course Template, and already present in a course from an earlier distribution will be ignored. 

Completion Rules

Materials that are added to a Course Template with completion rules and complete sequentially is selected, the completion rule and sequence will be respected when it is published to a course. 

If the course admin of the target section deletes the completion rules in a course, but not the materials, then the completion rules will not be recreated when the template is republished. 

Additionally, if a course admin deletes the materials with completion rules within a course, when the materials are recreated from the template, so are their rules.