There are many ways to copy and distribute a SQL server database to multiple users. In an academic setting, you have to constrain the students' access to just their database. That is, they usually don't have enough privileges to create databases. So, they cannot attach databases. In such cases, you have to jump through some hoops to make the distribution of the sample database possible. Some of these are listed here
- Import the database into an empty Microsoft Access database through ODBC and share the Access DB with the class. The students can import it back into their SQL server database
- Use the Publishing Wizard. I found this tool VERY handy as it creates the SQL you need to create all the tables and data. This blog post at Systems Engineering and RDBMS details how you can get this tool (in case you don't already have it) and call it from the command line to script just the data, just the schema or both
