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Instructors and designers can create backups; upload and download backups to and from the server; and use backups to restore into another course or newly created course shell (restoring typically overwrites content in one course with the content in the backup file). This ability allows instructors and designers to take "snapshots" of their course at any particular time, create and maintain a "template"of various course offerings, and archive records of course results. 

I. About MSU WebCT Courses

The Life of an MSU WebCT Course

Note: WebCT Request Deadline for ALL MSU faculty and instructional staff:
Requests for WebCT course shells must be submitted one full semester in advance of their anticipated use. See examples of this time frame below.

Definitions:
active course: MSU WebCT course that is offered over a specified period of time that will contain an active roster-- this includes both credit and non-credit courses that are associated with MSU and affiliates
practice course: MSU WebCT course shell that faculty and designers use to develop and test courses while working in WebCT

1. active courses must be requested before every semester
   • if you are planning to teach a course in an upcoming semester you must request a new MSU WebCT course shell
     • active courses do not carry over from semester to semester-- you have to make it happen via request
   • practice courses stay on the server indefinitely
     • all MSU faculty/designers are entitled to request one practice course initially
       • faculty/designers may request a practice course at any time
     • general rule of thumb: one practice course for every active course being taught
2. all courses are requested by faculty via the MSU WebCT online course request form
   • online course request form is accessed via the "Request WebCT Course Shell" link off of the MSU WebCT Faculty Resource page (https://btc.montana.edu/secure/webct.aspx)
   • if you have requested a course previously, type your WebCT User I.D. in the textbox under "Begin Your Request" and select the "Continue" hotlink button
   • if you have not requested a course previously, select "I need a WebCT User ID" hotlink
     • complete the required information to establish the MSU WebCT ID in the course request database
   • request the proper course type (either "new" [active] or "practice")
   • you'll receive an automatically generated e-mail containing the information you entered into the request database
   • all requested courses are created as blank courses (shell)
     • faculty/designers build new course from scratch in the newly requested course shell
     • faculty/designers use an earlier version of a course and restore it into their newly requested course shell
   • practice course requests require no special information be entered in the online request form
   • active course requests must have RUBRIC, SECTION #, TITLE, CRN information to complete the request form
     • CRN: a CRN is a unique number associated with a course
       • if you do not know the CRN for a Continuing Education or BTC Affiliated course - contact your program manager
     • active course requests with no CRN will force a delay - completing the request form appropriately will assure prompt course creation within the 10 business day window
3. MSU WebCT course shell is created within 10 business days of receipt of request
   • all courses are individually built on the server
   • if there are problems with an active course request it takes time to resolve (research and personal contact)
     • section numbers (wrong section number(s) forces re-creation of the course)
     • CRN mis-match (can force delay in adding students to course roster)
4. active courses populated with roster
   • the course request is what flags MSU WebCT to populate a course in a semester
     • when a CRN is processed, typically at the beginning of a semester, registered students are pulled into the WebCT course from the banner system
     • informational warning e-mail to faculty announce the imminent population of course
   • typically: courses are populated 3 business days prior to semester (or course) start date
5. active course runs
   • beginning, middle and end backups recommended
     • download backups to local machine-archive on media of choice
   • before any major change in course-perform a backup
     • a backup gives recourse in case something goes awry
     • backups can be downloaded or deleted if extraneous
6. active course ends
   • informational warning e-mail to faculty from MSU WebCT
   • course retirement dates established for end of semester (or individual course)
   • instructors should perform backups
7. administrative system backups maintained by MSU WebCT
8. active courses in the current term disappear from students' "myWebCT" pages
   • typically: 2 weeks after the last day of the course
9. active courses for past semesters are removed from the server 3 weeks after the last day of class in that most recent semester
   • practice course shells remain on server indefinitely unless instructor requests otherwise
   • it is assumed that instructors have made and secured backups of their course (download to local machine, archive, burn to media of choice)

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Course Request deadline:

For example:
- If you intend to use WebCT to supplement an on-campus course or offer a course fully online in Fall Semester 2006, you must submit a course request by the end of Spring Semester 2006 (by May 12, 2006)
- Similarly, if you plan to use WebCT in the Spring of 2007 you should submit a course request by the end of Summer semester 2006 - (by August 11, 2006).

Course requests that come in after the deadline of one full semester in advance of their anticipated use will be handled on a case by case basis but are not guaranteed to be available at the start of the semester. There is no penalty for requesting a course and not using it.

If you have any questions please call MSU WebCT support at your local college or at 994-6550 in Bozeman.

Note: MSU WebCT policies subject to change without notice.

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Why create a backup?

What a backup can do for you:

Security and peace of mind!

• An end of course backup gives you protection should a student contest a grade. Also, the backup is a handy reference for later - your backup contains the student roster and all associated student records.
• A set of interim (mid-semester) backups can protect you from yourself. If you make a backup before making wholesale changes to a course, you can always get back to the backup point if you do something bad, such as, say, delete all of your discussion messages. Yes, this has happened.

Why reinvent the wheel?

• A backup also gives you the opportunity to re-work the course in anticipation of a future offering of the course. You can make a "skeleton" of an existing course and use it again for an offering in a future semester
• EXAMPLE: For instance, after you've made your initial backup at the end of the semester, you could "reset" your student and TA rosters and then create another backup (after the reset, the back-up made will contain no student roster). After that, you download the no-roster backup to your local computer, request a new course (or use one you already have) and "Restore" the backup (with no roster). Then re-work the course. When the course offering comes up again, you make a new backup (containing the changes made) of your re-worked course, download it to your local computer, upload it into your newly requested blank course and restore. Course ready to go.

Where do backups exist?

• Backups are zip (compressed) files that exist on the WebCT server.

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Create a backup while inside your MSU WebCT course.

Log in to MSU WebCT and go into your course from your "myWebCT" page.

Select Control Panel hotlink button.

Note: If you have elected to "Show designer links" (by going into course settings and updating that option)-- "Manage Course" will be viewable and can be accessed from the course menu.

Select "Manage Course"

Note: If you have elected to use the "Expanded Control Panel" view then you'll see a link "Backup Course" that you can access instead of having to go into "Manage Course" to select the link in there.

Select the "Backup Course" hotlink.

Note: You can select "Create Backup" or "Upload Backup" hotlinks and it will take you directly to these areas from this point. For the purposes of this tutorial, we elect to show the backup course area proper. So you can view the WHOLE shootin' match (or at least the top part)!

Select the "Create backup" hotlink.

Note: In this example, no backups have been made previously, or if backups have been created previously, they've been cleared out of the Backup Courses area-- thus the statement "There are no backups available." Also, MSU WebCT restricts backups to two per course.

Type a description into the provided textbox and select the "Create" hotlink button.

Note: In your description it is handy to make a reference to what "version" the backup is and insert a date replete with month, day, and year-- when WebCT creates the zip file it names month and day only... the years go by! They say the mind is the first thing to go...

The backup process will execute. Large courses take longer to finish then small courses.

Select the "Continue" hotlink button after the Success message comes up.

The created backup appears in the "Backup Courses" window. The file information contains the course ID (how the course is known on the server-- in this case "MSUWCT01_YourCourse") followed by the day (March 29) and the time (1645). File size and the description you wrote are included in the information associated with the file.

Note: Though the file is saved as a .zip file, WinZip CANNOT open a WebCT course file... in order for the backup file to be viewed again it must be restored into an existing WebCT course.

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Download a backup associated with a course.

Created backups exist on the MSU WebCT server. The MSU WebCT server limits backups to 2 per course. If an instructor wishes to have more than 2 backups available for any particular course, then he or she must either delete (to make room if two already exist) or download the backup to a local computer.

Backups that are downloaded can be archived on the local machine or transferred to instructor preferences for media.
Backups that are deleted are gone-- there is no "undo" feature when working on the WebCT server.

From within a course:

Log in to MSU WebCT. Go into the course you wish to download the backup from and get to the "Manage Course" area of the course (via "Control Panel"-->"Manage Course"-->"Backup Course" or through visible "Designer Links"-->"Manage Course"-->"Backup Course").

Select the radio button corresponding to the backup you wish to download and then select the "Download" hotlink button.

The image below shows a progression of browser window, pop-up/dialogue box that accompanies this procedure. In the background is the "Your MSU WebCT Course" browser window, next is the "File Download" pop-up window with the "Save" choice in the process of being selected.

Note: It's a pretty safe bet that your machine's screen will not look the same as these pictures. Don't let this throw you- the steps are the same- it just might look different because these screen-shots and your screen's look are generated by different computers.

In this example, the designer has created a folder on his or her local machine entitled "My_MSU_WebCT_Course" and has created a subfolder named "Backups_for_course" inside of it. After navigating to the area and selecting "Save", the backup Zip file will reside there.

Note: It is always a good idea to create a space where you keep all course related electronic files. Following this practice makes it easier to find the files when you need them. Duh!

Download complete!

The downloaded file sits in the subfolder "Backups_for_course"...

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From the "Course Functions" area:

Log in to MSU WebCT. From your "myWebCT" page, select the "Course Functions" hotlink button.

Select the checkbox corresponding to the backup you wish to download and then select the "Download backup" hotlink button.

The dialogue boxes, selection process and navigation process is the same as when downloading a backup from within a course and is explained directly above.

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Upload a backup associated with a course.

Instructors and designers may have a need to upload a backup file into a course. The backup file to be uploaded exists on either the hard drive of a local computer, another server, or on media that the instructor or designer has used to store the previously downloaded backup file.

From within a course:

Log in to MSU WebCT. Go into the course you wish to upload the backup to and get to the "Manage Course" area of the course (via "Control Panel"-->"Manage Course"-->"Backup Course" or through visible "Designer Links"-->"Manage Course"-->"Backup Course").

Note: When going in through the "Manage Course" area, you can select the hotlink "Upload backup" (as below) to circumvent going into the "Backup Course" area. Selecting this hotlink will bring you directly into the upload procedure.

If you choose to go into the "Backup Course" area, then you must select the "Upload backup" hotlinked button to initiate the upload sequence.

Note: Notice there is a backup file that already exists in this course (highlighted in yellow). Since MSU WebCT allows two backups to exist on the server, it is possible to upload a previously created and downloaded backup into this course.

After selecting "Upload backup" the "Upload Backup File" window appears. Select the "Browse" hotlinked button.

Navigate to the area where the backup to be uploaded is located. Select the file you wish to upload, then select "Open" in the "Choose file" dialogue box (or double left-click it) to put it in position for the upload.

After the file is in position for upload (path highlighted in yellow) select the "Upload" hotlink button.

After the upload is complete, the file appears in the "Backup Courses" area.

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From the "Course Functions" area:

Log in to MSU WebCT. From your "myWebCT" page, select the "Course Functions" hotlink button.

Select the course area to upload the backup into by checking the corresponding box. Select the "Upload" hotlinked button.

The "Upload Backup" window indicates which course the backup file will be uploaded into. Select the "Browse" hotlinked button.

Navigate to the area where the backup to be uploaded is located. Select the file you wish to upload and then select "Open" in the "Choose file" dialogue box (or double left-click it) to put it in position for the upload.

After the file is in position for upload (path highlighted in yellow) select the "Upload" hotlink button.

After the upload is complete, the "Upload Backup" page indicates "Success". Select the "Continue" hotlink button.

The uploaded backup file appears in the "Course and Backup Listing" of the "Course Functions" area.

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Overview:

Instructors and designers can take any backup from a previously offered and/or developed course to use in a newly requested course shell (for a course offering in a new semester) or in an existing practice course (to continue to work on and refine the course). After the restore option has been completed, the backup course content will appear in the newly requested shell or practice course.

Note: Be careful. Pay attention. The possibility for calamity exists.

Two basic methods:

• From inside a course: While inside your MSU WebCT course, create a backup of the previously offered or developed course to use as the base for the new course offering. Download the backup to a local computer. Upload the backup into the newly requested course shell (or practice course), select the backup and choose one of the restore options ("Replace users", "Update users", "Keep users" or "Reset course") to overwrite the newly requested course shell (or practice course) with the information from the backup.
• From the "Course Functions" area of "myWebCT": While in the "Course Functions" area of your MSU WebCT course, create a backup of the previously offered or developed course. Select the backup file to use, choose which course (new or practice) to overwrite, and select one of the restore options ("Replace users", "Update users", "Keep users" or "Reset course") to overwrite the chosen course with the information from the backup.
  

Considerations-- how and when to reset the "old" course have different effects:

• resetting a course internally prior to creating a backup that will be used for a restore assures a clean restore
  • for instance, if a backup is made of a previously offered course without being reset first, student accounts from the "old" course will be overwritten into the new course shell-- this will cause the new course to appear on those student's "myWebCT" page unless the instructor takes steps to prevent this from happening (this can cause rampant student confusion)
• using the "Reset course" restore option leaves the content intact but flushes all student and TA account information and related data
• for additional information go to Restore Theory

"Replace users": To replace the users currently in the course with the users from the backup file, click Replace users. (If you have student and TA records from a previous semester in your backup, those users will be carried into the new shell or practice course and will replace any users that are in the course you restore into.)

"Update users": To keep the users currently in the course and also to update the user data from the backup file, click Update users. (User records from the backup will merge with the records of users already in the new shell or practice course you restore into.)

"Keep users": To keep the users currently in the course and ignore users from the backup file, click Keep users. (This option will leave users that are presently in the shell or practice course that you restore into, but WILL NOT bring in users (if any) associated with the backup you are using as the restore.)

"Reset course": To restore course content from the backup file but remove all users from restored course, click Reset course. (No users will be carried into the new shell or practice course from the backup and no users that exist in the shell or practice course will continue to exist.)

**WebCT Recommendation: Before you restore a backup, we recommend that you backup the existing course and download it to your local computer for safekeeping. If you don't like the changes in the restored course, you can upload and restore the existing course.

Using the restore option while inside your MSU WebCT course.
There are different ways to do this but the gist is basically the same. This example uses the "download/upload/restore-a-backup" (DURAB) method-- the backup is from a previously offered course and is being restored into the newly requested course shell.

In this example, on the course instructor's "myWebCT" page:

• The red arrow indicates the "previously offered" MSU WebCT course (a.k.a. "old").
• The green arrow indicates an ongoing development or practice course.
• The blue arrow indicates a newly requested course shell.

Log in to MSU WebCT and go into your "old" course from your "myWebCT" page.

Get to the "Backup Course" area of the course. Download the backup file to your local computer (select the backup you wish to download and select the "Download" hotlink button (indicated with blue arrow). Note that you can also create a backup, delete this backup or upload a backup from this area.

Return to the "myWebCT" page and go into the "newly requested course shell".

*Note: In the "Your Requested MSU WebCT Course Shell" (below) there are no backups presently associated with the course.

Get to the "Backup Courses" area and upload the backup you wish to use for the restore (in this case, the "old" course backup you just made).

Once the backup is in place, select the corresponding radio button and choose the restore option you wish to use.

In this case, the restore option chosen is "Reset Course" which cleans the course out completely (student records, TA records, discussions, mail, quizzes and so forth).

You receive a warning. Select "OK".

After the operation is completed, the "old" backup will have overwritten the newly requested course.

Using the restore option in the "Course Functions" area.
This example uses the "Course Functions" method-- the backup is from a previously offered course and is being restored into the newly requested course shell.

In this example, on the course instructor's "myWebCT" page:

• The red arrow indicates the "previously offered" MSU WebCT course (a.k.a. "old").
• The green arrow indicates an ongoing development or practice course.
• The blue arrow indicates a newly requested course shell.

Select the "Course Functions" hotlink button from the "myWebCT" area.

The "Course and Backup Listing" page displays. Select the backup from your previously offered course ("old course") and select the Restore backup button.

The Restore Course page displays.

Note: The backup file that you will be restoring (indicated by the red arrow) and the course that backup was stored in (indicated by the green arrow) are displayed at the top of the page. Verify this is the backup that you would like restored into your course.

Select the course that you would like to restore the backup file into and select the appropriate restore option.

Note: See About the 4 "Restore" options -OR- Restore Options Theory for information about each restore option

The Final Warning confirmation displays.

Caution: You can not undo this process. If you have any doubts, cancel this operation and create a backup of the course that you plan on restoring into and download it to your local computer. Then repeat the procedure to complete the restore.

Select the OK button.

Restore Course Current Progress displays. Note: This may take some time. Large courses will take longer than small courses.

Restore Course Success displays. Select the Continue button.

"Course and Backup Listing" page displays. The "old" backup has overwritten the newly requested course.

Restore Options: Theory

Understanding WebCT Student Database basics
*Note: WebCT calls the student roster inside a course the "student database"

Student confusion can arise if faculty and designers do not understand how and when courses display on individual student's "myWebCT" pages. Care must be taken when utilizing the Restore options to ensure that active, current MSU WebCT student's are only seeing the current courses that they are enrolled in and NOT old courses that instructors are refining via a new course shell or inside a development course. Faculty and designers must make sure that while they are working on refining an older course, the course DOES NOT appear on any student's "myWebCT" page.

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Student accounts in WebCT:

• When a registered student is in an active MSU WebCT course, the course appears on the student's "myWebCT" page.
  • If a course has students in it and the instructor does not want to grant access to the course then the instructor must take steps to ensure that the course is inaccessible to the students-- there are two basic ways to do this:
  • deny student access (course still appears on student's "myWebCT" page but students can't get in)
  • make students inactive (course does not appear on student's "myWebCT" page but student database still exists in course)
• Backups of courses that are restored into new shells or development courses may contain a student database from a past semester unless faculty and designers have taken steps to prevent this:
  • resetting the student database in a course prior to making a backup that will be used in a restore
    • this assures no student database after any of the restore options are performed (provided that the course that is being restored into has no existing student database)
  • if faculty and designers do not reset the student database prior to making a backup
    • use the "Keep users" (provided that the course that is being restored into has no student database) or "Reset course" restore function
• Remember: MSU Faculty and designers have special "student view" accounts available to be used inside their courses
  • faculty and designers can add the special "student view" accounts whenever they have need
  • contact MSU WebCT for more information if you wish to use one of the accounts in your course(s)

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The use of "Terms" in MSU WebCT:

MSU WebCT courses are made available to designers, students and TAs by using "terms" that are manipulated by MSU WebCT Support

• Terms hold courses that are revealed and hidden in accordance with scheduled course start/end dates and various other criteria
  • semester terms typically open three days prior to the start of the active semester and close two weeks after the end of the active semester
  • when the term is open, courses in that term are seen by and accessible to students
  • when the term is closed, courses in that term are not seen by and not accessible to students
  • typically, courses remain accessible at all times to faculty/designer and TA accounts
• Practice courses reside in a term called "All Practice Courses"
  • in the "All Practice Courses" term, the student view is always open
    • student view is left open so that faculty/designers can use "student view" accounts to check their courses from the student view
    • if faculty/designers restore an old course containing a student database into a practice course, there exists the possibility (dependent upon which restore option is used) that the student database will be carried over into the practice course in which case the practice course will appear on the students "myWebCT" page.

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Under what circumstances should you use the different Restore Options?

Caution: Before you restore a backup, we recommend that you back up the existing course and download it to your computer for safekeeping. If you don't like the changes in the restored course, you can upload and restore the existing course.

Replace users:
To replace the users currently in the course with the users from the backup file, click Replace users.

What happens:
If you have users in a course that already exists and you want to replace the users with users from a backup file, select this restore option.
The restored course contains the following:

• all users, their status (active or inactive), and their access (allowed or denied access) from the backup
• user-generated content from the backup, such as Discussions or Mail messages sent by students
• course content from the backup, such as quizzes and assignments

*Note: In this restore option, course content from the backup file overwrites the content into which the backup is restored. Student and TA accounts from the backup file replace the student and TA accounts that exist in the course that the backup is restored into. Designer accounts remain unchanged.

Possible uses:

• If you have a backup of a development course (or an old course) that has no users in it -or- the backup contains MSU WebCT "student view" accounts that you wish to keep in place -or- the backup has TA accounts that you wish to keep in place then you could use this option to make this happen. The course that you are restoring into could have any manner of users still associated with it but performing this restore option removes them in favor of the users from the backup file.
• You can also use this option if a course is already in progress and the designer needs to retrieve course content and the list of users from the backup.

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Update users:
To keep the users currently in the course and also to update the user data from the backup file, click Update users.

What Happens:
If you have users in a backup file and you want to "merge" them with the users in course that already exists, select this restore option.
The restored course will contain the following:

• all users, their status (active or inactive), and their access (allowed or denied access) from the existing course
• user-generated content from the backup, such as Discussions or Mail messages sent by students
• course content from the backup, such as quizzes and assignments

*Note: In this restore option, course content from the backup file overwrites the content in the course into which the backup is restored. Student and TA accounts from the backup file "merge" with the student and TA accounts that exist in the course that the backup is restored into. Designer accounts remain unchanged. (go here for more information about the effects of the "merge")

Possible uses:

• Use this option if a course is already in progress and the designer needs to retrieve course content and user-generated content from the backup.

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• all users, their status (active or inactive), and their access (allowed or denied access) from the existing course
• course content from the backup, such as quizzes and assignments

*Note: In this restore option, course content from the backup file overwrites the content in the course into which the backup is restored. Student and TA accounts that already exist in the course remain. Designer accounts remain unchanged.

Possible uses:

• If the MSU WebCT automatic student roster population (via the CRN) has happened at the beginning of a semester but you haven't got the proper course content (content that exists in a separate backup file) in the course-- you could use this option to keep the users in the course but replace the course content.

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• course content from the backup

*Note: In this restore option, course content from the backup file overwrites the content in the course into which the backup is restored. Student and TA accounts are cleared from the course. All tools and content in the course are reset with no record of student or TA activity left in the course. Designer accounts remain unchanged.

Possible uses:

• Use this option if the designer wants to reuse content from another course. The restored course does not contain any users or user-generated content.

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• remove user data and content manually from within the course
• do an entire course reset via "Course Functions" (using either the "Restore Options" or the "Reset courses" hotlink button from the "Course and Backup Listing" page)
• do a selective "automatic" reset from within a course
• Or use a combination of the techniques.

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