Blueprint Workflow

[pdigiacobbe]

Hello,

We are new to Canvas beginning in January with a very quick implementation.  I am still trying to find the best Blueprint Workflow for us.  I am not happy with the process I am using right now.  I would like to layout the process I am thinking about and ask for input.

Fall and Spring semesters we run a 16 week semester, a First 8-week term, a middle 8-week term that starts 2 weeks after the first 8, and a Last 8-week term.  Currently, I create a new blueprint for each term.  I don't think this is very efficient and is going to cause a lot of confusion for our instructors. I know they won't be able to keep track of which blueprint they should be updating.  Currently, our department manages all the blueprints-to-class creation through integration files.

I would like to move to a dual blueprint for each course.  So, we would have a blueprint for the 16-week courses and a blueprint for the 8-week courses.  At the beginning of the semester, I would create the courses for the 16 and first 8-week terms.  After week 1 is complete, I would dissociate the 8-week courses from the blueprint so that I can create the middle 8-week term courses.  I understand this will not allow me to sync the first 8-week term any longer. But I found out the hard way that changing the dates in the blueprints to create the middle 8-week term, changed the dates in the first 8-week term.  I would have to dissociate the middle 8-week term before creating the last 8-week term. And dissociate all before creating the next semester courses.  This will allow the instructors the time to update the blueprint with new semester information without affecting the previous semester.

We have program leads that are responsible for updating the dates in the Blueprints for the new term/semester.

Any thoughts on if this sounds reasonable?  Any suggestions to other options?

Thank you

Patty DiGiacobbe