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Instructors:
On May 15, 2008, we will be
permanently removing all Spring 2006 Blackboard course shells. Once these course shells are removed, they will no longer be
available to any users.
If you added content to one of these course shells and/or used them to
provide content to students, you may have already archived them at the
end of that term, and the archive would be saved on your computer.
If you did not archive the course, you should do so by
May 14, 2008, 11:59 p.m. (Central Time).
Instructions for archiving can be found on our web site on the
Blackboard Archiving page, which is a part of the
end of semester procedures described on our
Blackboard Semester End
Procedures for Instructors page.
If you have archived these courses previously, you might consider
archiving again to take advantage of enhancements applied to the Archive
feature in Blackboard over the past couple of years.
The primary purpose for archiving is to preserve course content and data
as it exists at the point of archiving (usually at the end of a
semester). At this time, there is no provision for allowing instructors
to view or restore an archive file. This must be done through a special
procedure at the Blackboard administrator level by certain Office of
Distance Education staff. This process may be used for resolving
disputes or verifying certain types of information after the course is
removed from the Blackboard system. This would be a rare occurrence,
since we actually leave the courses on Blackboard, fully accessible by
instructors for 2 years. Courses removed after 2 years have a much lower
likelihood of anyone needing access.
If you feel that one of these courses needs to remain on Blackboard for
an extended period of time, you may request a 1 year extension by
replying to this message by May 7, 2008,
4:30 p.m. (Central Time). You should include your name,
Blackboard user name, the Blackboard Course ID (which can be copied from
the course Control Panel or from your "My Courses" list), and the reason
you need the extension (i.e. student needing to complete an "I" grade,
student access needed for some other reason, etc.). If you are unsure
how to provide the Blackboard Course ID, you may provide the year, term,
course ID, section, call number and course title instead.
Archive files are not intended for capturing and restoring course
content for later use. If you feel you need access to course content in
one of these courses, and you do not have that content saved in its
original form on your computer, you may either save individual files out
of Blackboard onto your computer, or you may use the Export feature in
your Blackboard course to export a content only package to your
computer, which can be imported by you into another course on Blackboard
at a later time. Instructions for the Export and Import features can be
found on our web site. This is similar to the
Course Copy feature, except you are capturing the content to a special
file on your computer that you will then be able to import later into
another course on Blackboard using the Import feature. (The Course Copy
feature copies content between two courses which are both still on
Blackboard.) If you need to export or save content out to your computer
from these courses, you need to do so by May 14, 2008, 11:59 p.m. (Central Time).
Again, the dates to remember regarding the removal of Spring 2006
Blackboard course shells are:
May 7, 2008 - deadline for
requesting an extension.
May 14, 2008 - deadline for
archiving or exporting courses.
May 15, 2008 - courses will be
permanently removed from Blackboard.
If you have questions about archiving, exporting, the removal of
courses, extension requests, etc., please
contact the Office of Distance
Education and we will be glad to provide further explanation or
information.
We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
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