Merging Course Sections with the Section Merge Tool

Download – Section Merge Tool – Background and Instructions

Watch a video on merging sections

Learn more about merging multiple sections using our self-paced interactive tool

What is Merging and Why Do It?

Merging course sections allows instructors to consolidate enrollments from multiple sections of the same course in the same term into one Blackboard course. This allows instructors to maintain and make changes to content in one course, rather than several.

What Happens When Course Sections are Merged?

Speaking generally, Blackboard courses contain:

• • Content (documents, media, quizzes, etc),

  • Student Activity (assignment submissions, discussion posts,e-mail, etc), and

  • Enrollments (students registered in the course)

During the process of merging courses, ONLY ENROLLMENTS are merged from multiple source courses into one merged course.

Course content and student activity are NOT MERGED from the source courses.If any content or student activity existed in the source courses itwould remain in those source courses and NOT be available from themerged course.

For this reason it is very important that instructors merge courses BEFORE adding content and certainly before there is any student activity in course sections.

How to Merge Course Sections

MacEwan has purchased a "Section Merge Tool" from Blackboard so that instructors can merge their own courses. Download the "Section MergeTool – Background and Instructions" document that will step you through the merging process.

Download – Section Merge Tool – Background and Instructions

The topics covered in the document are:

• 1. Why merge courses

  2. What happens when course sections are merged?

  3. How to merge course sections

  4. How to "unmerge" (disassociate) sections from a merged course

  5. How to add additional course sections to a merged course

  6. Separating students into course sections in the merged course