2. Course Creation Considerations

Spending some time making decisions on the initial creation of users, courses and then adding enrollments is an important part of the implementation process. This guide should help you identify necessary information for creating courses.  

To get started, think about answers to the following questions: 

  • Do you plan to provide a new course shell every year/semester?  
  • Do you need/want to categorize courses by school, department, grade level, term, year, or other designation?
  • Do you know the start dates for classes (this defines the date ranges for a Weekly formatted course)?   
  • How do you want to structure course information naming conventions?  

Here are format samples for fullname and shortname:  

  • Intensified Algebra 1: Blum, Period 1 
  • P1-MATH:Blum-2022-23 
  • Foundations of Technology: Harrison, Period 2 
  • P2-TECH:Harrison-Sem1-2022-23 
  • Grade 6 Visual Arts; McNeal-Smith 
  • GR06-ART:McNeal-Smith-2022-23 

To batch create a set of courses you will need to create a CSV file. The easiest way to do this is using Excel or another spreadsheet application. You will need columns for: shortname, fullname, category (no spaces in shortname or fullname). 

Every site has a Miscellaneous category designated by "1" that can be used if you do not wish to create categories. Categories make organization easier, but they are not necessary. If you want to use categories, we suggest a year or term category structure (ie. 2022-23 for all academic year courses, Training or Professional Development, etc). We also recommend pre-creating your categories before creating your courses.