Cloning a section is the process of creating a new section in the same or different term, and copying all of the classes and their content into the new section. Cloning does not carry over any students, instructors, analytics, Q&A, or confusion markings on content. Only the classes and their content are cloned into the new section.

You have the option to give the new "cloned" section a set schedule, such as Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 10 am to 11 am, copying the existing classes into that schedule. Alternately, the cloned section can have NO set schedule, and the existing classes will be copied with their class name and content, but with no date/time applied to them.

The only user assigned to the new section is the primary instructor selected during the cloning process. If necessary, you can later change the primary instructor of the section once the cloning process is complete.

When cloning a section you must select an existing Term and an existing Course. If these do not yet exist, you cannot clone the section.

Instructors may need to prepare their sections for cloning: If cloning a section into a class-schedule pattern, and there are more classes in the section than can be fit into the pattern within the term, the remaining classes are copied but have no date/time assigned to them. If there are manually-created classes in the section co-located with the scheduled classes, this can badly throw off the cloned class pattern. Instructors should plan to reorder and/or group their class list to account for these supplemental classes, specifically moving all manually created classes to the bottom of the class list prior to cloning.
Refer instructors to Preparing for Section Cloning for more information.

To clone a section

1. Select COURSES from the main navigation bar at the top of the page.
2. Use the search box or filter drop-down lists to find the course for the section you want to manage.
3. Click on the chevron button to the left of the course to expand it and show the Sections in the course. This is identified in the below figure.
4. HOVER over the section you want to edit, to expose the action icons on the right side of the row.
   
5. Click the Clone Section icon - it looks like a standard "copy" icon and sits between the calendar and the instructor view icons. It is identified in the above figure.
6. In the dialog box that appears, enter a Section Name.
7. Select a Term and Course from the drop-down lists.
8. Select an Instructor from the drop-down list. This will be the Primary Instructor for the new section.
9. Use the radio buttons to determine if the cloned classes are to be set to a schedule or not. The effects of each option are described in more detail below.
   
10. If you select to clone the classes on a schedule, enter a Start date, a Start time for each class, a Duration, the weekly frequency, and the days of the week the copied classes should be set to occur.
    NOTE: Cloning does not generate a capture schedule for the section. Any captures that must be generated for the new section must be scheduled and will create separate classes, different from the cloned classes.
11. When finished, click CLONE.

The new section appears in the dashboard of the primary instructor, though it may be grayed out if the Term selected for it has not yet started.

There are no students assigned to the section yet, and the primary instructor is the only instructor. You can change the primary instructor if necessary, or add other instructors to the section.

The instructor will be responsible for editing class names or class dates/times if the automated-cloning application of date/time is not appropriate for all classes.

Section Cloning Options

When cloning a section, you have two options for setting the section structure: copy all classes with no date/time/duration, or copy all classes into a schedule structure (one that typically corresponds with the lecture schedule for the class).

If you select to Set all classes to have no date/time/duration pattern, all classes are simply copied, with the same name and with the content currently published to them into the new section. They retain the same order (and grouping) they currently have in the existing section.

The instructor may want to adjust the order or edit the class details such as class name or date/time/duration for some of the copied classes if appropriate.

If you select to Set new date/time/duration pattern for each class, you must select a start date and a duration, and a pattern to follow. Then what happens is this:

• The first class of the current section is copied and now contains the start date, start time, and duration of the first class in the pattern.
• The second class is copied and contains the next date, start time, and duration, based on the repeat pattern you select.
• All subsequent classes are copied following this pattern until there are no more classes to copy, or until the Term end-date is exceeded.

If there are more classes in the section than can be fit into the pattern within the term, the remaining classes are copied but have no date/time/duration assigned to them. We strongly recommend instructors move any manually created classes in the section to the bottom of their class list prior to cloning so that the scheduled classes line up in the pattern from one term to the next.
Refer instructors to Preparing for Section Cloning for details.

If you or another administrator later set a capture schedule for the section, the classes created by the schedule should appear in the section along with the cloned classes.