Enroll large groups of students in a course automatically

University Subscription Level

As an Administrator, you can enroll large groups of students in a course by uploading a CSV file.

This feature allows an Administrator to enroll students in a course in bulk (100 enrollments at a time) so that students can bypass the typical course enrollment process.

Students enrolled in this way will automatically have a User account set up in your university; you won't need to do this first.

With the course welcome notification, bulk-enrolled students will be able to click one link and be brought to their student account to begin the course.

Important: Please read the companion article for this feature, Enroll Students in a Course Automatically, in the University Enhanced Features section. Students created in bulk have a different method of course enrollment than student user accounts not created in bulk.

We strongly recommend that the first lesson activity in your course include an instruction for each student to set up his/her profile, including adding or changing their password, and adjusting their time zone (if necessary). If these adjustments are not completed by the student, they may not receive their course notifications at the appropriate time, or may have difficulty signing in with a password. Please work with any course instructors in your University to implement this important course creation step.

Create bulk course enrollments from a CSV file

The import students feature is available in Site Management, in the Courses tab. This feature allows you to create new student enrollments for a large number of users with a CSV (comma separated values) file that contains the student's name and email address.

IMPORTANT: If uploading existing University users to a course, be sure that your CSV file displays the existing user's email address exactly as it appears in your University's People listing, including spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. Any variation between your CSV file and the student's existing account record will cause a new account to be generated, rather than the desired effect (that a new course be added to the existing student's account).

You can create a CSV file in a text editor, such as Notepad++ (Windows) or TextMate/Atom (Mac). If you are using Microsoft Excel, create a file and save as a CSV file type.

The file format should appear this way:

Name,Email 
John Anderson,johnanderson@mycompany.com 
Sarah Thomas,sarahthomas@mycompany.com 
Mark Smith,marksmith@anothercompany.com 
Lisa Johnson,lisajohnson@anothercompany.com

Bulk Import New Course Enrollments

Go to Site Management > Courses.
Select the course by course name.
Click the "Students" tab.
Click the "Import students" button.
Select a CSV file.
Click "Ok".

You will see a success message saying "Your file 'myfile.csv' is processing. You will receive an email once the import is complete."

Once you receive the import complete notification email, your users should now be imported and new course enrollments will be completed for each student. If there are problems with the import, you will see a message in the email corresponding to the problem.

Note: New students successfully enrolled in a course will automatically receive a course welcome email within a few moments of enrollment.

IMPORTANT: Any student enrolled in the course through bulk upload will receive a special version of the course Welcome Notification. Where the link to the course is normally displayed in the email notification (default or personalized), there will be a link to a one-click sign-in to your University. When the student is brought to his/her account, a banner at the top of the page will invite the student to create his/her password. The course he/she has been enrolled in will be displayed in the student's Learning Library.

Possible Reasons for Import Warnings

File is not formatted correctly as CSV (comma separated values) file. Make sure the file extension is ".csv". If using Microsoft Excel, try opening the CSV file in a text editor, such as Notepad++ (Windows) or TextMate/Atom (Mac) and make sure all the values are separated by a comma as shown below and in the examples at the top of the page.
```
Name,Email
John Anderson,johnanderson@mycompany.com
Sarah Thomas,sarahthomas@mycompany.com
Mark Smith,marksmith@anothercompany.com
Lisa Johnson,lisajohnson@anothercompany.com
		
```
Too many columns in the CSV file. We support "email" and "name" file titles. Both fields are required.
Missing headers. Headers are typically required.
You have exceeded the maximum import limit of 100 users at a time.
User already enrolled in the course.
User email is too long. Maximum 100 characters.
User is already present in the course but has been removed.