Copying course material and notifications

Be aware that when copying material into a course offering that is active, any users in that course offering who subscribe to notifications will receive notifications as appropriate for the new materials as soon as they appear. This can confuse students if you copy a News item, for example, that includes information about upcoming class events or due dates and you plan on editing those dates after you copy the News items over. (Users who sign up for News notifications receive an alert immediately when a News item is posted.) Similar situations will occur with Dropbox folders and Quizzes, which provide notifications two-days before end dates or due dates.

The decision to receive notifications is the student's, and they can choose text messages and/or email. Safer options are either to change dates and/or content in the source course offering before copying stuff over or creating items manually.