Beginning in January we will begin removing courses from our Blackboard system. Over the past year, with the help of the LIT Advisory Committee, we’ve established a policy for archiving and removing courses from Blackboard. This policy has been approved by Faculty Senate and the Provost’s Office. Moving forward, we will be archiving courses one semester after the course ends (so, Fall 2017 courses will be archived at the end of Spring 2018) and courses will be removed from Blackboard after three years.

One reason for the policy is practical; storing old courses requires storage and since we are using hosting services, we pay for storage. Removing courses not being actively used saves space. Archiving courses provides a record for courses in the event either the content in needed or there is a grade dispute after a course has been removed from the system.

Once the archiving and course removal process is complete you will see courses from 2015-2017 plus Spring 2018 courses listed in My Courses or on the Courses tab in Blackboard. Should you need access to courses for terms before this, contact LIT and we can selectively restore courses to a temporary sandbox site for you.  Moving forward we will archive courses three times per year and at the same time remove courses more than 3 years old.

Instructors can export course packages to retain copies of course contents and structure for future use. For more information on exporting courses see Blackboard’s help resources.