Blueprint issue - I left due dates unlocked, but they synced anyway

DSSCC

I may not understand blueprints correctly, so please educate me!

I'm an instructional designer in higher ed. I'm working on a course with multiple sections that run on two different schedules. All content and requirements are the same - only the dates are different. I'm using a blueprint course to sync the content, but I don't want to sync the dates.

In the blueprint, I first associated the child courses that will run on Schedule A, with the corresponding dates. Then I disassociated those courses, changed the blueprint dates to Schedule B, and associated it with the Schedule B courses. Everything looked fine. Then the instructor made a couple of changes to the blueprint. I locked content only, leaving all the date options unchecked. But when I reassociated all the child courses to sync them, the blueprint dates (still set to Schedule B) pushed in and overwrote the dates in the Schedule A courses.

What did I do wrong? How can I do this better, so I can sync the content but not the dates?

tbaker-mc

For this, it'll be a combination of your locking set in the blueprint's course settings and what you have populated on assignments (due dates). Leaving due dates unchecked in the blueprint is correct — this means that due dates can be edited in a course without issue. The mistake is that you populated the blueprint with dates. Essentially, when you re-associated Schedule A with the blueprint, you told it to match the blueprint, so Canvas followed the logic and said the due dates needed to match as well.

Your solution is actually really easy: do not put in due dates in the blueprint. This will prevent you from unassociating and then reassociating the courses, ensuring the content is up-to-date. For the due dates, enter them only in the individual courses. Whenever you re-sync the blueprint to the courses, and you have the settings enabled properly (see my example below), Canvas will say, "yes I will update the content, but I will not remove the due dates."

This is how we have our courses and programs (programs are multi-month courses for us), and our due dates never get removed with these settings.