For Admins
Cloning creates a new course from an existing Vocareum course. Use it when you want to run the same course again, for example for a new term, a new section, or a different organization, without rebuilding assignments and lab environments from scratch. The new course starts with no teachers, students, submissions, or grades enrolled or carried over, and you must set new deadlines after cloning.
To clone a course, you need Organization Admin (Org Admin) access.
Cloning Methods
Two methods are available in Vocareum for duplicating a course:
Clone by Copy gives the new course its own independent copy of all content and settings, so teachers can edit it, and changes to the original course never affect it.
Clone by Reference keeps the new course linked to the original course, so it can only receive assignment content and settings updates from the original "parent" course.
For most cases, Clone by Copy is recommended, as it is the simplest and most flexible option. The following sections further explain each method.
Clone by Copy
When you clone a course using Clone by Copy, the new course receives the items listed below. After cloning, changes made to either course do not affect the other.
Item | In the new course |
Course settings and lab environment settings | Copied |
Assignment groups, in the same order | Copied |
Assignments and parts, including lab type and lab configuration such as budgets and limits | Copied |
Rubrics and multiple-choice question answer keys | Copied |
Exam options and accommodation settings | Copied |
Content files, including starter code, scripts, and the grading, student, and course libraries | Copied |
Published state of assignments | Copied only if Inherit Published State is selected |
Deadlines, late submission and grace periods, and review dates | Not carried over |
Teacher and student enrollments | Not copied |
Submissions and grades | Not copied |
Clone by Reference
Clone by Reference is intended for organizations that run many identical sections of one centrally managed course, where every section must always use exactly the same files. If that does not describe your course, use Clone by Copy.
If this does describe your needs, expand this section to learn more.
If this does describe your needs, expand this section to learn more.
A course cloned by reference is called a Child course. The original course it was copied from is called the Parent course.
The Child course does not get its own copy of the content files, such as the contents of the starter code, scripts, and data folders. Instead, it reads those files directly from the original course. Any change to those files in the original course applies immediately to every referenced course, including courses already in progress.
New assignments, parts, rubrics, lab configuration, and course settings are copied at the time of cloning and do not update automatically. To push later changes from the original Parent course, go to the Vocareum dashboard and select Update under Actions for the original course. This opens the Update Children window.
Clone by Reference has the following limitations:
The new course is read-only. Teachers cannot edit assignments, settings, or groups.
The new course cannot be cloned again or rerun. To create another course, clone the original course instead.
Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) link redirection for cloned courses is not available.
A course cloned by reference cannot be converted to Clone by Copy later. To switch, create a new clone of the original course using Clone by Copy.
How to clone a course
The following sections walk through the process for cloning a course.
Opening the clone options
To open the clone options for the course you want to copy:
Go to the Vocareum home page. If you have more than one role in your organization, select Org Admin from the dropdown in the upper-left corner.
Find the course you want to clone, then under the Actions column, click the Clone button.
Selecting clone options
The clone window displays the options for the new course. To configure and create the clone:
In Method, select Clone by Copy or Clone by Reference. (Refer to the earlier sections in this article for details on each method.)
Enter the course name, start date, and end date for the new course.
Enter the email addresses of the teachers to enroll in the new course, separated by commas. Teachers enrolled in the original course are not added to the new course automatically.
Select Teacher Editable so that teachers can change content in the new course if cloning by copy. In most cases, leave this option selected.
Select Inherit Published State to keep assignments that are published in the original course published in the new course. If you clear this option, every assignment in the new course starts unpublished.
In Organization, select the organization the new course will belong to.
If the original course uses generative AI (GenAI) features, select a GenAI policy for the new course, or choose to remove GenAI.
Click Clone.
Cloning runs in the background. A message confirms when the new course is ready.
For a video walkthrough, check out Cloning a Course.
After cloning
Before students access the new course, review the following:
Enroll teachers. Teachers from the original course are not carried over to the new course. If you did not enter teacher email addresses when cloning, enroll the teachers in the new course before it starts.
Set deadlines, late submission and grace periods, and review dates. These are not carried over from the original course.
Confirm which assignments are published, especially if you cleared Inherit Published State.
If the original course is connected to a Learning Management System (LMS) through LTI, refer to [LTI 1.3] Cloned Canvas Course Link Redirection or [LTI 1.3] Cloned D2L Brightspace Course Link Redirection.
To run the same course again later, you can clone the new course, or refer to Rerunning a course.
Frequently asked questions
I fixed an error in the original course after cloning by copy. Does the new course get the fix?
No. A course cloned by copy is independent of the original, so you would need to make the same fix in the new course as well.
I added an assignment to the original course after cloning by copy. How do I add it to the new course?
Use Copy Assignment to copy the assignment from the original course into the new course.
Why are teachers unable to edit the new course?
Either Teacher Editable was not selected when the course was cloned, or the course was cloned using Clone by Reference, which is always read-only.
Why am I unable to clone or rerun this course?
The course was likely cloned using Clone by Reference. Courses cloned by reference cannot be cloned again or rerun. Clone the original "parent" course instead.