School Year Changeover - Overview (Teacher)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 1 Overview
• 2 Copy your courses for the new school year
• 3 Keep student access when archiving synchronised courses
• 4 Archive courses you no longer need
• 5 After the summer break

Introduction

The change from one school year to the next is a good time to prepare your courses in itslearning. This article outlines what to do before the summer break ends the school year, and what to do once the new school year starts, with links to the full procedures for each step.

1 Overview

The tasks below fall into two stages. Before the summer break, you copy your courses for the new year, refresh their content, and archive courses you no longer need. After the summer break, once the new learner groups exist, you add them to your courses.

2 Copy your courses for the new school year

Rather than building a course from scratch, you can create a new course based on last year's course, using it as a template. This copies the structure and content, such as plans, topics, and resources, into the new course. Student-specific data, such as results, submissions, and attendance, is never copied.

For the full procedure, including how to review a template before using it, see Course Templates – Reference (Teacher).

3 Keep student access when archiving synchronised courses

Archiving a course removes it from the course overview page for all participants. If students are connected to the course through an organisation group (previously called hierarchy synchronisation), their membership updates automatically when the organisation structure changes, for example when a class moves up a year level. Students who move to a new group lose access to the archived course.

If you want students to keep access to an archived course, remove the automatic group update before archiving it. This converts the group's members into individual participants, so they keep access regardless of later changes to the organisation structure. This should not be done without authorisation from a school admin, as there could be GDPR issues involved in keeping student data longer than needed.

4 Archive courses you no longer need

Archiving is useful at the end of the school year for courses that are no longer in active use. Archived courses remain accessible and can still be used as templates for new courses. If you no longer need a course or its content at all, consider deleting it instead to free up storage space.

For the full procedure, covering both single and multiple courses, and how to find or reactivate archived courses, see Courses – Archiving (Teacher).

5 After the summer break

Once the new learner groups are set up for the new school year, add them to your course as participants. If you add an organisation group, membership updates automatically as further changes occur during the year, so you do not need to repeat this step later.

For the full procedure, see Course Participants Page (Teacher).