Updating a course for next semester without starting over
To update a course for next semester, copy the whole course folder, set the new first-lecture date and shift every week's date by the difference, then go through the weeks one at a time with last term's version next to the new one. Change what did not work, refresh readings that have aged, and leave the rest alone. A course that is text in a folder makes this a morning's work.
This guide assumes the course exists and ran at least once. It is a routine, in the order that avoids redoing work: dates first, then a week-by-week pass, then the syllabus, then the sources.
Step 1: copy, do not edit in place
Keep last term's folder as it was. Copy it to a new folder named for the new term (os-course-spring-2027) and do all the editing there. The old folder is the reference you will compare against, and the record if a student from last term asks for a deck.
If the course is in git, tag the old term (fall-2026) before copying, or make the new term a new folder in the same repository. Either way, the old state must stay reachable.
Step 2: move the dates
Set the new first lecture date. Week N's date is that plus N minus one weeks. Update the date wherever it appears: the syllabus table, the front matter or title slide of each deck, and the assessment dates. Then check holidays; a week that lands on one moves or merges.
Doing this by hand across fourteen decks takes half an hour and is where errors creep in. If the decks are text, a script that rewrites the date lines from the syllabus table takes it to seconds.
Step 3: review week by week against the old term
Open the old week and the new week side by side and ask, for each:
- What did not land? Your notes after the lecture (or memory) say which explanation confused the room. Rewrite that slide, not the deck.
- What ran long? Move a slide to the next week or cut it. The block that always overran is a plan error.
- What is stale? A version number, a screenshot, a dataset, a "recent" paper from six years ago.
- What is fine? Most of it. Leave it.
The point of the side-by-side is to see exactly what changed and to stop the rewrite from spreading. A line diff makes this concrete: added and removed lines, per week.
Step 4: update the syllabus
The schedule table already moved in step 2. Now check the outcomes against what the course actually taught, the evaluation against what you actually graded, and the policies against this year's department wording. If a reading was replaced in step 3, replace it in the references too.
Step 5: refresh the sources
Add the new readings to the course's source folder, remove the ones you dropped, and re-index if your tools index sources. If an assistant writes notes or questions from the sources, this is the step that stops it citing the chapter you no longer assign.
Doing it in Lecture Studio
Lecture Studio keeps a course as a folder of numbered units with a syllabus and a sources folder, so the routine above maps onto the app. New term from this course copies the folder, takes the new term and the first lecture date, shifts every deck's date line and copies the sources, then links the two terms; the course screen shows one capsule per term. Compare with another term shows every unit of the new term against the same unit of the old one, with a line diff on the right and a summary per unit (same, +N −M lines, only in this term), which is step 3 without opening two windows. The old term can be archived afterwards. The assistant, which needs an Oberik project key, can then rewrite a slide, redraft the syllabus or write new questions from the refreshed sources. The app runs on macOS 15 or later and is free during the beta.
FAQ
How do I reuse course materials for a new semester?
Copy the course folder, update the dates from the new first lecture, review each week against the old version, then update the syllabus and the readings. Keep the old folder unchanged as the reference.
How do I change the dates in all my lecture slides at once?
Keep the date in one line of each deck and in the syllabus table; a script or a tool that knows the layout can shift them all by the same offset. In Lecture Studio, New term from this course does it.
Should I rewrite my slides every semester?
No. Rewrite the slides that did not work, refresh what is stale, and leave the rest. A side-by-side comparison with the old term keeps the rewrite from spreading.
Can I compare two versions of a lecture?
If the decks are text, yes: a line diff shows what was added and removed. Lecture Studio shows this per unit across two terms of the same course.