Documentation Required: Import course into content library

[sdaitzman]

Course → Content Library Import Feature

The new Content Libraries has a planned feature to allows users to import content from a course into a content library: openedx/frontend-app-authoring#2519

Purpose

Import copies course content into a v2 content library where it can be managed centrally and referenced across multiple courses. This is distinct from backup/restore (which creates library snapshots for local archiving and preservation) and migration (which moves v1 libraries to v2).

How It Works

Import Flow:

1. Select a course - Choose a course to import content from
2. Analysis stage - The system analyzes the course content (may take 20-60 seconds for large courses based on engineer estimates)
3. Review import details - See a content summary showing supported and unsupported blocks
4. Import completion - All content is imported into a collection within the target library, and the user is presented with a summary of import status

What Gets Imported:

• The full course hierarchy is preserved from sections down: sections, subsections, units, and components
• Each item is also represented at the library's top level for flexible reuse
• Course settings are preserved where applicable; unset settings stay unset / use default values

Key Features & Considerations

• Block support - The system identifies which blocks can and cannot be imported, with clear error messaging
• Re-imports are supported and create content in a separate collection (logged as duplicates). The API supports a merge strategy that tries to update previously imported / matching content.
• Full course import only - Currently planned to import the entire course rather than selective portions

Related Tickets

• Related / came up from this thread: Add documentation on library backup & restore #1335 (comment)
• [Frontend] Epic - Import (course-to-library) frontend-app-authoring#2519
• Epic 11 - Course to Library Import - Backend frontend-app-authoring#1681

---

Note, the purpose / how it works section / key considerations section above was generated partly using genAI text summary tools, and I've edited it/corrected the details.

[sarina]

@sdaitzman the first line says this is planned, so is it not ready for documentation yet?

[sarina]

@kdmccormick @edschema is this ready for documentation for verawood?

[kdmccormick]

thx for the ping, just asked in Slack

[sarina]

Will test this flow out to write documentation with the Open edX demo course (importing it into a library on the Verawood test box), take screenshots etc and document the flow, then address openedx/openedx-demo-course#58 by removing the old-style library from that repo and adding the new-style.