Creating and Associating Templates

A template is a course that contains tools, settings, and content but not student data. A template serves as a pre-designed format and can be re-used across multiple courses so that individual courses do not have to be created each time. This allows courses to have a consistent appearance and structure, but courses can be customized individually without changing the template.

Creating and Editing Templates

You can create and edit templates by:

· creating templates;

· building templates;

· editing template properties; or

· importing content as a new template.

Creating Templates

Templates allow you to develop their course(s) before students are enrolled.

1. From the My Courses page, select Content Manager. Once on the Content Manager screen, select Template Manager. To develop a template, select Create Template. The Create Template screen appears.

2. In the Name text box, enter the template name. This name appears when you search for templates. You want this name to be short yet descriptive. You can create as many templates as you want. However, if you have two or more templates, you may want to set up a way to distinguish between them. For example, you may teach an honors section, a traditional section, and a distance section and want them to all include different content. This scenario is possible with Vista. You may also want to include a designation that the template is yours, such as including your name, which will help you assign the correct template to your section.

3. In the Keywords text box, enter one or more keywords that identify the template when you search for templates. To separate keywords, use commas.

4. In the Description text box, enter a useful description for the template. Template descriptions are used to identify templates that have been assigned to sections. Descriptions also appear in the View Information pop-up window. One piece of information that is useful in the description box is the date the template was created.

5. Save the template by doing one of the following:

· If you want to save the template and return to Template Manager, click Save. The Template Manager screen appears and the new template is added to the list of templates.

· If you want to save the template and create another, click Save and Create Another. The template is created and the Create Template screen is cleared. Repeat steps 2 through 5. You would repeat these steps if you have different varieties of the same course; for example, distance and traditional or honors and regular.

· If you want to save the template and assign permissions:

a. Click Save and Set Permissions. The Manage Permissions screen appears.

b.Under Template Status, select one of the following:

i. To make the template available for association with other courses and for copying to other learning contexts, select Public.

ii. To make the template publicly unavailable, select Private.

c. By default, the user that created the template is the template owner. If you want to assign ownership to another user enrolled in the learning context, select a user from the Ownership drop-down list.

Note: Template ownership can only be assigned to an administrator or template designer that appears in the drop-down list.

d.You can allow other designers in the learning context to be editors of the template by assigning them editorship permissions. If you want to assign editors to the template, next to Template Editor(s), select one or more designers in the learning context:

Note: Owners are automatically editors. Editors gain ownership of all files in a template.

i. Under Potential Editor(s), select the users.

ii. Click the Add icon. The users are moved from the Potential Editor(s) column to the Selected Editor(s) column.

iii. If you want to remove a user that you selected as an editor, under Selected Editor(s), select the user and click the Remove icon. The user is moved back to the Potential Editor(s) column.

e.Click Save. The permissions are saved and the Template Manager screen appears.

· If you want to save the template and start adding tools, tool items, and course content to it, select Save and Start Building. The designer interface for the template appears.

Building Templates

Once a template is created, you can build the template by adding tools, adding content items created with those tools, and adding course content. You can build templates that you have created or templates for which you have been made an editor or owner. You have access to all of the templates that appear as links in your learning context in Template Manager.

1. From the Template Manager screen for your learning context, navigate to and select the title of the template you want to build. The Build screen appears.

2. Begin to build the template by adding individual tools, items, and content.

Working with Templates

Designers can create templates, which are inactive, unassigned courses. Templates can be created and saved at the domain, institution, division, group, and course organizational levels. Templates do not contain student data.

To work with templates in the Administration area, you can:

· Associate templates with a course: Any template created in a course or a parent learning context, such as an institution, can be associated with a course. Templates created in the domain can also be associated with a course. Only templates associated with a course can be assigned to its sections. You can associate templates in the Templates tab.

Note: The Templates tab is only available at the course organizational level.

· Assign a template to a section: Any template created in a course or a parent learning context, such as an institution, can be assigned to a section. Templates created in the domain can also be assigned to a section. Alternately, a section can be set to blank, meaning all design is carried out within the section, or content from one section can be copied to another section. You can assign a template to a section when you create or edit a section.

· Reassign a different template to a section: Reassigning a template will remove content, activity data, and grades from the section. You can reassign a template to a section by editing the section.

Warning: It is recommended your back up a section before reassigning a template.

Moving Templates

Note: Templates cannot be moved to sections.

You can move templates between learning contexts in which you have template permissions. When you move a template, you can set the template status to either public or private and assign an owner and editor(s).

1. From the Template Manager screen, navigate to the learning context that contains the template that you want to move.

2. Do one of the following:

a. To move one template or several templates, select each template that you want to move and click Move. The Content Browser pop-up window appears.

b. To move all templates on the current page, click the checkbox next to Title, which selects all templates on the current page, and click Move. The Content Browser pop-up window appears.

3. Navigate to the destination learning context to which to move the selected templates.

4. Click OK.

Note: The OK button is only available if you have permissions in the destination learning context.

a. If the template name is unique in the destination learning context, the Manage Permissions pop-up window appears.

b. If the template name already exists in the destination learning context, the Resolve Naming Conflicts pop-up window appears.

· To assign a new name to the moved template, in the Rename text box, enter a template name and click OK. The Manage Permissions pop-up window appears.

· To replace the existing template with the moved template, select Replace Existing and click OK. The Manage Permissions pop-up window appears.

5. Under Template Status, do one of the following:

a. To make the template private, select Private.

b. To make the template public, select Public.

6. Under Template Permissions, from the Ownership drop-down list, select a user in the destination learning context as the template owner.

7. If you want to assign editors to the template, next to Editorship, select one or more users in the destination learning context:

Note: Owners are automatically editors. Editors gain ownership of all files in a template.

a. Under Available, select the users.

b. Click the Add icon. The users are moved from the Available column to the Selected column.

c. If you want to remove a user that you selected as an editor, under Selected, select the user and click the Remove icon. The user is moved back to the Available column.

8. Click Save. A confirmation pop-up window appears.

9. Click OK. The template is moved and the Templates Manager screen appears.

Deleting Templates

When you delete a template:

· the template record in Template Manager is deleted;

· the template is removed from its associations with courses meaning that it is no longer available to be assigned to sections; and

· all content added to the template File Manager is deleted.

1. From the Template Manager screen, navigate to the learning context that contains the template that you want to delete.

2. Do one of the following:

· To delete one template or several templates:

a. Select each template that you want to delete and click Delete. A confirmation message appears.

b.Click OK. The selected templates are deleted.

· To delete all templates on the current page:

a. Select the checkbox next to Title. All templates on the current page are selected.

b.Click Delete. A confirmation message appears.

c. Click OK. The selected templates are deleted.

d.If there are additional pages of templates, and you want to delete them, use the paging controls to move to the next page and then repeat steps a through c.

Associating Templates

Note: Only Course Designers can associate templates with courses.

You can associate one or more templates to a parent course of a section. When a section designer enters the section for the first time, they select one of the templates from the pool of associated templates.

To associate a template:

You can choose from any of the templates created at the course learning context or its parent learning contexts. You can associate multiple templates to a course.

1. From Template Manager, locate the course to which you want to associate a template.

2. Select the ActionLinks icon next to course title and click View/Manage Associated Templates.


The list of associated templates appears.

3. Click Associate Templates. The Select Template screen appears, displaying a list of all templates saved in the course as well as in parent groups, divisions, institutions, and domain learning contexts.

4. Select the checkbox next to each template you want to associate.

5. Click Save. The Associated Templates screen appears with the selected templates associated with the course.

· To disassociate templates from the Associated Templates screen, select the checkbox and click Disassociate.

· Make sure you have at least two templates associated to a course at all times. This allows you to choose which template you want when accessing your section(s) for the first time.