Why should I combine shells?

Potential advantages of combining shells:

• Saving time and effort -- the creation and maintenance of one course website versus separate courses for each section; all of your improvements and modifications are consolidated in one shell; 
• Greater accuracy -- doing things only once reduces the chance of making errors;
• Consistency of content for all sections --  be confident that all of your students are getting the same information;
• Leaverage your creative efforts -- create special documents, study guides, or layouts that benefit allof your students;
• Increase diversity: of people, of opinion -- you have the option to involve all of your course sections in common discussions and group work;
• Emailing all of your students or an individual student is easy

Potential challenges of combining shells:

• The Grade Center default view includes all the students, alphabetically organized, from the shells that were combined. You should create "Smart Views" for each individual section.
• Separating students according to sections requires some initial settings that should worth the effort.  Placing each section in a different group makes it possible to:
  • Keep discussions separate between section
  • View grades by section
  • Email students by section