Meta Courses

PLEASE NOTE: Courses for the upcoming academic term will not be visible and available for metacourse requests until 30 days prior to the first day of class. Requests made before that time will be in error, and not able to be processed.

Individual AsULearn courses are automatically created and populated by Banner events, reflecting all university courses listed with the Registrar. Some faculty prefer to request the creation of a new course that combines the student enrollments from multiple sections (or courses). In the past, we referred to this course as a "master course", and the process as "cross-listing." Beginning in Summer II, 2009, we will refer to this course as a Meta Course, and the process will continue to be "cross-listing."

A meta course is just like any other course except that it automatically enrolls participants from other "child courses". Child courses are the normal courses you always see - the ones created and populated by Banner events via the registrar. As a result of submitting this form, the AsULearn administrator will create a blank meta course per your request, to which you will restore your course backup (content only, with no users or user data). Then, you may then add any course in which you are instructor of record (i.e., your role in AsULearn is 'Teacher') as a child course in the meta course.  The enrollments (including add/drop events) of the child course(s) are automatically forwarded to the meta course.  We recommend that you make all the child courses unavailable to students, so that the students in your (cross-listed) meta course see only the meta course.  In this new scenario, you are no longer dependent on the registrar or AsULearn administrators for "cross-listing"--- you simply need to request that the AsULearn admin build a meta course for you.

So, you will be able to "cross-list" different courses or sections by making use of a meta course.  Here's the process:

1) Submit the cross-list request form.  If you are the instructor of record for ALL the courses involved, proceed with the steps below.  If you are NOT the instructor of record for ALL the courses involved, the AsULearn administrator will complete the process for you.

2) When your request is processed, a new BLANK meta course appears in the proper term in your 'My Courses' block, into which you will restore your course backup (content only, with no users or user data) or place your new materials and resources if you are starting from scratch. NOTE: Only restore 'clean' content-only backups with no users or user files.  If you restore users from a previous semester, you'll have to remove them yourself using the 'Assign roles' tool in the meta course's "Administration" menu.  LTS highly recommends that you restore your backup BEFORE you add the child courses to your meta course.



3) In meta courses, the "Administration" menu contains one new option: "Child Courses" (this is a quick way to visually identify a meta course, along with the course name's "M_" prefix and "instructor last name" suffix).



4) Click on the 'Child Courses' link.  In the box on the right, all courses in which you have a 'Teacher' role are displayed, and all of these courses are available to be added as child courses in your meta course.  IMPORTANT: Please look carefully at the Course ID and Term to insure you are adding the courses from the current term (see the rectangular box below).  The last six digits always denote the year (2009 or 2010, for example), followed by a semester code (10 = Spring; 20 = First Summer; 30 = Second Summer; 40= Fall).  In the example below, the instructor wishes to add the two sections of ECO2040 that he is teaching in Fall, 2009, so he'd be careful to look for "200940" at the end of the Course ID number.  Notice that it would be easy to mistakenly choose the section he taught the previous Spring, ECO2040101-10543200910 (the second course in the list below).  Again, 200910 denotes the Spring 2009 offering of this course, and it should not be used as a child course for a Fall 2009 meta course.  NOTE:  LTS supports child courses (i.e., "cross-listing") only in the current term.  You should never add child courses from a previous (or different) term, as those terms may no longer be visible to students.

5) Select the course(s) you wish to add as child courses by clicking on them in the right window.  For PC users, Shift-click to select contiguous courses, and Ctrl-click to select non-contiguous courses.  For Mac users, Shift-click to select contiguous courses, and Command (Apple)-click to select non-contiguous courses.

Once the desired courses in the current term are selected (double-check those semester codes!), click the left-facing 'Add' button, and the courses will appear in the 'Assigned' window on the left, and be removed as an available child course in the right pane.

NOTE: If you don't see the course you're looking for when you click on the "Child Courses" link, that means you do not have a Teacher role in that course. For example, if you wish to add a colleague's section to YOUR meta course, that colleague will have to add YOU as a Teacher or Secondary Teacher in her/his course. Then you'll see it as an available Child Course from your meta.

Since you will be using the meta course, be sure return to the AsULearn login page and make sure any child courses are unavailable to students. All courses are unavailable by default (grayed-out link preceded by (H)), but if you need to make a course unavailable, just click on the link to the child course, then Administration > Settings > Availability > This course is unavailable to students. That way, all of your students will only see the link to your meta course. Likewise, make sure your meta course is available to students.

If you change your mind or make a mistake, you can remove a child section (or sections) by clicking on them in the left pane (all the same keyboard selection tricks apply), then clicking on the right-facing 'Remove' button.  IMPORTANT: If students have completed activities (like assignments or quizzes) or made postings to forums, these data may be lost if you remove their child course from the meta course.  Any activities completed by students in the meta course DO NOT transfer to the child course.

NOTE: As in the past, if you are working with relatively small numbers of enrollments, it is still possible to use the 'Assign Roles' function to combine enrollments yourself -- by searching for/adding students from another section or sections to a chosen course, then making the other sections unavailable to students.  This ability was in place before the upgrade and is still functional.  If you have questions about the best solution for your situation, please contact Greg Simmons (simmonsgs@appstate.edu, 828-262-6991).

As always, LTS recommends that you tell students to access all AsULearn courses via its direct login URL: http://asulearn.appstate.edu, where their courses (meta and otherwise) will show up in their 'My Courses' block.