Blueprint Courses

Blueprint courses provide a powerful tool for pushing content from one course into one or more other courses. They give you the option of locking individual pieces of content in the blueprint course to restrict editing capability for that content in other courses. Blueprints allow distributing template content and/or locked down content to multiple courses simultaneously. For an overview of how Blueprint Courses work in Canvas, please view this short Blueprint Courses Overview video.

For a comparison of Blueprints and Templates please refer to Canvas Templating Options.

Step 1: Identify Blueprint Manager

Blueprints require an admin permission to set up the initial configuration, requesting blueprint course shells, converting those courses to blueprints, and connecting associated courses to the blueprint. Therefore, it's crucial to identify a single person to serve as the Blueprint Manager within the academic department or program who understands exactly which courses should be associated with which blueprint. The Blueprint Manager will be responsible for completing the request form and associating courses with Blueprints. Once a Blueprint Manager is identified, the department should provide that information to the Blueprint Manager Request Form so that the appropriate permissions can be established.

Blueprint Manager Request Form

The form output will typically be reviewed within 1 or 2 business days, and the Blueprint Manager will be contacted via email after review.

Note: Individuals who are interested in using blueprints with their own courses rather than through a department will need to make that request through the Baylor ITS Help Desk.

Step 2: Complete Blueprint Request Form

The Blueprint Manager should complete the Canvas Blueprint Request Form with accurate information for a single department or program and a single term at a time. Ensure the term ID matches the correct six-digit term code as found on regular Canvas courses.

For each Blueprint course needed, provide the course prefix, course number, and course title. If multiple Blueprint courses share the same prefix and course number combination, append a letter (A, B, C, etc.) to the course number and optionally include an instructor's last name in the Title field. See examples on the Blueprint Request Form.

IMPORTANT: All Blueprint Managers must schedule a consultation with the Learning Systems team before submitting your first blueprint request form. If a form is submitted prior to consultation, your form will not be processed!

Canvas Blueprint Request Form

The form output will typically be processed within 1 or 2 business days after the courses in the selected term are available in Canvas, and the Blueprint Manager will be notified upon completion. Please avoid submitting a Blueprint request before the courses for that term are loaded by Banner into Canvas.

Step 3: Configure Blueprint Courses

Once the new courses are created, the Blueprint Manager must:

Caution: Please exercise extreme caution when associating courses with blueprints. Associating courses with blueprints in the same term ID number is crucial to avoid pushing content into incorrect courses. Mistakes in this step can have serious consequences and can be very difficult to resolve.

Step 4: Teacher's Role

Teachers play a crucial role in the Blueprint process. To successfully implement Blueprint courses, teachers should:

Accept the invitation into the Blueprint course
Add appropriate content
Use the Blueprint synchronization process to push content into associated courses.

This on-going process involves ensuring that the content in the Blueprint course is synchronized and updated across all associated courses. Teachers can manage this synchronization to ensure consistency in content across multiple courses.