The first thing you want to do is update all dates to the new semester:
- On the Control Panel of your new course, under Course Tools, select Date Management.
- For Select Date Adjustment Option, select Term Information.
- From the Term drop-down menu, select the new term.
- Click the Submit button.
- It can take up to a minute to complete the update process, depending on how many dated items you have in your course.
Unfortunately, not all semesters start on the same day of the week. For example, Fall 2016 started on a Monday, but Spring 2017 started on a Tuesday. If, like me, you have all of you work due on the same day of the week, that means once I do a semester date update, all of my dates will be off by one day. However, I can easily adjust dates by a specific number of days using Date Management. There are two ways you can do this.
My preference is to work with one item type at a time. That let's me work with just 13 or 14 items at a time instead of 70 or 80.
To work with specific item types:
- If you aren't still on the Date Management review page, which appears after you changed you semester dates, select Date Management from the Course Tools on the Control Panel.
- From the Item Types drop-down menu, select the type of item you want to work with. For example, you can select all Assignments.
- Click the Select All box at the top of the list of items.
- Click the Adjust Dates button.
- At the bottom of the screen, an area will appear where you can enter the number of days you want to adjust. Positive numbers move the dates forward, while negative numbers move the dates backward.
- After you enter the number of days, click the Go button.
You may prefer to change all of the dates at one time.
To change all of the dates:
- If you aren't still on the Date Management review page, which appears after you changed you semester dates, select Date Management from the Course Tools on the Control Panel.
- Click the Run Date Management Again button.
- This takes you back to the Date Management page. This time select the Adjust by Number of Days option.
- Enter the number of days you want to adjust. Positive numbers move the dates forward, while negative numbers move the dates backward.
- Click the Start button.
Another problem in changing from semester to semester is the breaks don't always fall at the same time in the semester. You may need to adjust the dates on just a few items to account for these discrepancies.
To change the dates on selected items:
- If you aren't still on the Date Management review page, select Date Management from the Course Tools on the Control Panel.
- If you want to focus on just one item type, select it fom the Item Types drop-down menu.
- Click the Select box next to each item whose dates you want to change.
- Click the Adjust Dates button.
- At the bottom of the screen, an area will appear where you can enter the number of days you want to adjust. Positive numbers move the dates forward, while negative numbers move the dates backward.
- After you enter the number of days, click the Go button.
Everything we've done so far changes all of the dates for the selected item, the Availability Start and End dates, as well as the due date. If you want to change just one of those dates, you need to do it on each item individually.
To change dates on individual items:
- If you aren't still on the Date Management review page, select Date Management from the Course Tools on the Control Panel.
- If you want to focus on just one item type, select it fom the Item Types drop-down menu.
- Click the pencil icon to the right of the item whose date you want to change.
- Click on the date you want to change.
- Select the new date from the calendar that pops up.
- Click Done on the calendar.
- Repeat steps 4-6 if you want to change another date for the same item.
- When you are done changing dates, click the green check mark to the right of the item to finish the update process.
The last thing you want to do is verify your updated dates. There are lots of ways to do this, but this video will show you how I verify mine.
