Saving Course Materials from 2006-2007 Sites

Online Learning has begun the process of deleting Blackboard sites for 2006-2007 courses. This process, necessary to recover storage space and improve system performance, has three stages:
1. Alerting instructors and departments about the targeted courses and the process.
2. Providing support for saving materials prior to course deletions.
3. Deleting all sites from 2006-2007. (June 15, 2010)

Online Learning will be offering multiple drop-in/call-in times to assist instructors with this process.

Why are we doing this? We can improve system performance by clearing out the oldest courses while keeping our promise to retain course sites for two full years.

When we delete these sites--on June 15, 2010--they will automatically disappear from the My Courses list (and also from "My Places.")

Please note that this plan affects ONLY course sites from 2006 (the earliest sites in the system) through Fall 2007. No other course sites are being targeted for removal at this time.

 

Which sites are going to be deleted?

At the very top of your Blackboard window, click My Places. Scroll to the bottom of the list of your courses and look for those labeled "ZZZ TO BE DELETED 6/15/10."

IMPORTANT: PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ANY OF THESE SITES "AVAILABLE." Doing so will cause automatic email notifications to be sent to all of your students and cause GREAT GRIEF AND CONFUSION.


To keep materials from the sites that will be deleted, select among these options:

 

  1. Download and save the Grade Center and other course materials.
    To download the Grade Center from any course, enter the Grade Center and then:
    * Click "Work Offline" at the top, near the right margin, and select Download.
    * On the "Download Grades" window, leave all settings alone and click Submit.
    * On the next window, click DOWNLOAD.
    * Choose to SAVE the file to your computer.
    NOTE that YOU must save the Grade Center yourself. Students' grades will NOT be preserved in any other way.

    To download other course materials (syllabi, handouts, etc.):
    * In your old course, enter the course area containing what you want.
    * If the material exists in a file, right-click the link and choose to SAVE the file to your computer. We are also opening the "My Content" area to you, so that you can save these files directly within Blackboard. From My Content you can create links to any other courses, and enjoy the advantages of a single location for files you use repeatedly. Directions to use the My Content area are here.
    * If the material is displayed within Blackboard, click to Edit it, and then use copy-and-paste to move the contents of the editing box into Microsoft Word. (We do not recommend using copy-and-paste directly from the Bb display into Microsoft Word.)
    NOTE that this process is rather tedious, and is useful only when you have a very few documents to save. If you have many documents it will be much better for you to use one of the next options.

  2. Copy course materials into any newer Bb site.
    Follow these directions.


  3. Identify course sites that must be copied intact.
    To get all COURSE MATERIALS (not including enrollments or students' grades) copied into a new Bb site:
    * Copy-and-paste the COMPLETE course name, like "ZZZ TO BE DELETED 6/15/10 PHI 110 Beginning Philosophy, Fall 06, 13456," into an email message.
    * Address the message to gene.kleppinger@eku.edu with the subject line "Save this Bb course."

    We must RECEIVE ALL REQUESTS FOR COURSE COPYING by May 10, 2010.

    NOTE that Online Learning wants to help you by COPYING these sites for you; you do not need to export or archive the sites yourself. Also note that our copying process will NOT include enrollments or students' grades. If you want to preserve students' grades you must download the Grade Center yourself, as directed above.

  4. NOTE: Please do NOT use "Archive Course" or "Export Course" for these old sites.
    The files you get from these processes are not useful to you. They can be opened only within a Blackboard system.

  5. NOTE: Please do not change the course names that begin with "ZZZ TO BE DELETED."
    Changing a course name will NOT protect a site from deletion; in other words, you CANNOT save a course that way.