How to import a course from archiveprowl.coloradocollege.edu

Before we begin the guide, you should know that you are always welcome to ask Educational Technology Services for support in PROWL guides – the process is quick but we know it can be confusing. We’re happy to help it !  Contact us at x6449 or helpdesk@coloradocollege.edu

Overview: This guide shows the standard procedure for how to go about re-using a PROWL course you’ve used in a previous academic year.  It is important to note that:

• http://prowl.coloradocollege.edu contains the current and previous year’s courses (2010-11 and 2011-12)
• all courses prior to 2010-11 reside on http://archiveprowl.coloradocollege.edu (note that in order to access archiveprowl from off campus, you need to connect to SSLVPN)

This guide will show you how to

1. create a new course shell in prowl
2. create a backup of your old course from prowlarchive
3. import the backup into your new course shell

This process preserves the old course intact for archival purposes, and lets you use all the resources without bringing over the user data (in things like discussion forums or assignments).  For this reason, it is the preferred method of reusing a PROWL course.

And now, the guide!

1) First, head to PROWL by pointing Firefox (yes, using Firefox is important – PROWL does not play nice with Internet Explorer or Safari) to https://prowl.coloradocollege.edu and log in using your CC username and password.

2) Start by creating the new course to which you’d like to import resources.  (If you have not created a course before, you may need to see our Course Creation guide).  In the example below, we’ve created a fictitious English course into which we want to import resources from a course that resides on archiveprowl.coloradocollege.edu.
Important Note: whether your course is organized by weeks or topics, you need to make sure that you have enough “buckets” available for the import to work properly -otherwise, resources will be left out or jumbled up.  You can just create your new shell course initially with something you’re sure will be enough (like 50 topics) and then after the import go back into settings and delete the extraneous ones.

3) To increase the number of topics go to the Administration sidebar and choose Settings.

4) Once in settings, you want to look for Number of weeks/ topics. It defaults to the topics format. From the drop-down menu, where it says 10, choose anywhere from 25-50 topics. (Again you can always go back and remove topics after the import.)

5) Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

6) Now that you have created your new course, with the appropriate number of topics, open a new browser window or new tab and type http://archiveprowl.coloradocollege.edu. The Login is located in the upper right hand corner of your browser window. See image below.

NOTE – if you are doing this from off campus, you will first need to log in to SSLVPN before you can access archiveprowl (once logged in, you’ll see a link for it under “web bookmarks”)

7) Once you are logged in to archiveprowl, you will be looking on the main page for Archive. It is listed under Course Categories.

8) The following screen should present you with a list of previous academic years. For the sake of this guide, lets say you want a course from the ARCHIVE – 2010-2011 category.

9) Once you are in ARCHIVE – 2010-2011 you can navigate to your department/ division to find your course.

Important Note: Some archives are organized differently than others, if you are searching in another year, say ARCHIVE 2009-2010, you may need to use the search at the bottom of the page. Searching for your course can be easy IF the course followed the naming convention:

Course Number Course Title – Professor’s Last Name Block Year

EN 101 Introduction to English – Smith B1 2011-12

If you do not have all the information in your course name, try key word searches.

10) Once you have found your course, we will need to create a backup. Go to the Administration sidebar on the left and click Backup.

11) You will be taken to a screen that will show you course data to be backed up. On the left-hand side you should see all of your data to be backed up. Leave these items checked. On the right-hand side is User Data. You do not want to add old user data to your new course. Choose NONE and PROWL will uncheck all User Data boxes.

12) You will need to scroll to the bottom to review the next set of settings. User Files should be set to No. Under Backup role assignments for these roles, you only need the role of Teacher backed up. Please see the image below as a guide. (The roles you see may vary.)

13) In the following screen, PROWL ask you to confirm the content you are backing up. Scroll to bottom of the page and click Continue.

14) PROWL will ask you again if you want to Continue, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Continue. The next screen should tell you if your backup was created successfully. Again, at the bottom click Continue.

15) Once the backup has been created, PROWL will automatically take you to your Files section. Here, you will need to download the backup zip file. Simply click on the backup file that will be named something like: backup-ah275-2011…

You will be prompted to choose a location, on your computer, to save the file. Once you have the backup zip file on your computer, you no longer need to navigate through archiveprowl.coloradocollege.edu.

16) Now we need to return to prowl.coloradocollege.edu. If you are not already logged in, please login to prowl.coloradocollege.edu and find the course the course you created. When you are on your new course, go to the Administration section on the left-hand side of your page and choose Files.

17) You will now upload your backup file. Click Upload a file.

18) Then click Browse and choose the backup zip file you downloaded to your computer.

19) After uploading, the next screen should look similar to this…

20) Once we have successfully uploaded your backup file, we need to restore the contents to your new course. On the right hand side under Action, click Restore.

21) PROWL will ask you if you want to continue, click Yes.

22) PROWL will ask you to verify contents. Scroll to bottom and click Continue.

23) The step is important. From the drop-down menu you need to choose where you would like to restore your course data. Since you created a new course, choose Existing course, adding data to it.

Important note: If by chance you do not choose Existing course, adding data to it, and you leave the drop-down menu to the default option, New course, PROWL will create a new course with the same data with “copy” at the end of your course title. If this happens, don’t fret, you can go into Administration>Settings and change information for that course.

24) You are still on the same page, once you have set Existing course, adding data to it, scroll to the bottom and click Continue.

25) Now you will need to find the course you created. This will entail scrolling through courses until you find your new course.
Helpful Hint: To search on a PC browser try using CTRL F, to search on a Mac broswer, try using command F.

27) Once you have found your course, click on it.

28) You should be prompted with similar looking screen below. Click Restore this course now! you will have completed the Restore process!

If you have any complications restoring your course, please contact the Help Desk for support!

Last Updated 10/3/11

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