Creating a New Course (or copying an old one)

University of Texas Instructors

University of Texas at Austin classes will be automatically created and rosters will be loaded from the registrar's database at least a week before classes begin (for long semesters).



1) Select "New Course" from the center bottom of your Quest homepage


2) You will have the option to copy an existing course (more info at end of this page*), or create one from scratch. (If opting to copy a course from your institution you will need importer or instructor access. How to import content with this authorization here.)

  • Name your course with a full name and a short name.
  • Assign a course unique (can include letters) for students to be able to enroll in the course. The Associated Uniques designation is optional, but useful for combining multiple sections of a class. All the assignments and grades are kept in one course, but the grades can be sorted by their associated unique.

University of Texas Instructors

Avoid using 5-digit number as course uniques for practice or master courses (ie one you will build but will not be shown to students) to avoid issues with the registrar's listings.


External Instructors

Name unique in a relevant and mindful fashion, as this will be how the students find your course to enroll.



3) Continue to fill out necessary course information fields


  • If you have multiple institutions associated with your account, you can select the appropriate one using the Institution drop down menu.

  • The semester drop down menu allows you to pick which semester a course is associated with and selects which subject icon is viewed by students.
  • Specifying a subject area provides us with additional information about the course.

  • Selecting the local timezone ensures that times displayed when assignments are due are correct. 
  • The student access start and end dates control when students will be able to access your course, but are limited within our semester windows. The semester dates are available here.



    Let us know when you have a course that needs to be moved to the new semester so that we can avoid issues with access as we move through the academic calendar.




4) Set if you'd like for students to be enrolled (if a class) or not (for a practice, master, or sandbox course).


  • You have the option of displaying when and where your class will meet.

  • Student Enrollment must be enabled for students to request enrollment in your class.

  • Student Login must be enabled to allow students to access the course once enrolled.


 



  • These are simply the email, and website you want associated with the course.



*Copying a course

If you'd like to copy a course, expanding this section clicking on the black +

  • If you already have a course from a previous semester, you can use it as a template for a new course through these dropdown menus.
  • Alternatively, you can request access to similar courses built by other users at your institution to use as a template by emailing us at questhelp@austin.utexas.edu--be sure to include your UT eid along with your request.


Pro-tip:

Think of it as xeroxing a piece of paper, it makes a copy of the old course. Changes made to the old course will not carry over to the new one after the copy is performed, but you will be able to edit and modify your course with this content post copy.




The next page in course creation is the grading scheme, which will copy from a template if used.