**What is a blueprint course?**

A blueprint course allows you to create course content and push updates to all associated courses.

You can use a blueprint course when two or more courses are simultaneously taught with the same content for different groups of students. This saves time because you only have to make changes in one course. All changes are synchronised to the associated courses.

If you want to make use of a blueprint course, contact your [Canvas Faculty Support](https://library.maastrichtuniversity.nl/apps-tools/canvas-support/canvas-faculty-support/)

**Before you start**

- Do not add content to the individual/associated courses but wait until the blueprint is ready and then add your content there.
- The blueprint and associated courses are created with the UM template and you enrolled as a teacher.
- The blueprint has a name starting with BP and indicating the range of associated courses e.g. BP-EBC1025-26-27-28 Finance.

The blueprint icon on the upper right corner indicates that you are working on a blueprint course.

Edit the template pages in the blueprint.

Build the course structure, with modules, assignments and content in the blueprint course.

For assignments all interaction with students has to take place in the associated courses (in the blueprint no students are enrolled) so assessing assignments and all grading activity should be performed in the associated courses.

Same for discussion topics. They can be prepared in the blueprint, but the actual discussion will take place in the associated courses.

You can also add announcements in the blueprint.

You can make the announcement available at a moment in the future or make it available immediately.

If you make the announcement available immediately there won't be a time stamp of the announcement in the associated course.

Here you see an announcement in the associated course without a time stamp.

If you make the announcement available immediately and you want a notification to be sent from the associated courses it is possible to select this when syncing.

You can import existing content into the blueprint course. Make sure to avoid double pages.

Guide on copying course content: [Canvas Course Copy](https://scribehow.com/shared/Canvas_course_copy__61h26O2rQrO2Wh4fC7DRhA?referrer=documents)

You can lock content items in de blueprint course. This means that the content item cannot be changed in the associated courses.

Now the content item is locked. You can unlock it again by clicking on the locked icon.

We advise you to lock content in the blueprint course, so that it cannot be changed or deleted in the associated courses. The reason for this is that when you do change or delete content in the associated courses, this content will not be synced again from the blueprint course.

Changes in the blueprint will not transfer automatically to the associated courses. You have to manually synchronise changes to the associated courses.

Click on the blueprint icon in the upper right corner.

Behind Unsynced Changes you see how many changes were not yet synced to the associated courses. Click on Unsynced Changes to see those changes.

Here you see an overview of the Unsynced Changes. For each change you will see: the current status of the object (locked or unlocked), the name of the content item, the content change and the content object type.

You can also enable to:

- include course settings (by default these are not synced);
- send Notification (notification about the sync to be sent to you);
- enable New Item Notification (users receive notifications for new announcements).

Click Sync to copy the course content to the associated courses.

Click Sync History to see the changes that were already synced.

Here you see an overview of the already synced changes. For each change you will see: the current status of the object (locked or unlocked), the name of the content item, the content change, the content object type and if the sync was successful.

When content is unlocked it can be changed in the associated courses. Changing an unlocked content item in an associated course means that this item is no longer connected with the blueprint and future changes in the blueprint will no longer affect this item in the associated course.

Here you see a locked content item (page Introduction).

You can edit a unlocked content item in the associated course but then this item is no longer connected with the blueprint and future changes in the blueprint will no longer affect this content item in the associated course.

You can also add content to the associated courses that is only relevant in the associated course. These content items don't have any connection to the blueprint.

Adding new associated courses next to existing associated courses

Ask your[Canvas Faculty Support](https://library.maastrichtuniversity.nl/apps-tools/canvas-support/canvas-faculty-support/)when you want to add a new course as an associated course to an already existing blueprint: 

- Do not add content to the individual/associated course but wait until the course is associated to the blueprint course.
- be aware that all content already existing in the blueprint will sync to this course;
- make sure associated courses that you no longer want to be synced with the blueprint are removed before new courses are associated.

Maastrichtuniversity

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A blueprint course allows course coordinators to create course content and push updates to all associated courses.

How to use blueprint courses in Canvas