Blackboard (Faculty) - 5 + 1 Course Retention Practice

SIUE has a finite limit to the amount of data that can be stored in Blackboard. As a result, course shells outside the 5 + 1 (+1 = the current semester) retention window will be removed from Blackboard after the official start of each fall, spring, and summer semester. Faculty are responsible for downloading and keeping copies of older course shells; ITS will retain no backups of deleted courses.

Best Practices In Addition to 5+1

Blackboard (Bb) course shells have a maximum limit of 2 GB. Exports cannot be generated for course shells that exceed the 2 GB limit, so backups of these courses cannot be created. Some large files added to course shells that cause quota issues are lecture videos or other multimedia files uploaded by the faculty member or that students submit as assignments or as attachments on discussion board posts. To keep course quotas low, storing these types of files outside of Bb is strongly recommended to use SIUE-approved systems, as these require authentication and have enhanced security.
 
Faculty and students should use YuJa to store video files. Links to the videos should be shared rather than uploading the video file to Bb. Visit this ITS KnowledgeBase article for how to find and share a video link.

Although smaller files, like syllabi and related documents, don't take up much course space, some larger documents, presentations, and multimedia audio files can cause problems with course quotas. These types of files can be uploaded to OneDrive and a link can be used in Bb. Refer to the KB artice, Blackboard (Faculty) - OneDrive: Link a File or Folder from OneDrive in Your Course, for more information. You can find more topics about using OneDrive in Blackboard in the KB.

Export Blackboard Course Shells

Faculty are encouraged to export Bb course shells to keep a copy for future use. Creating an export ensures that the course's structure and content will be available to be imported into a future course shell. Follow these instructions for taking an export of your course shell. 

Store Backup Files

While faculty can store course backups locally, ITS recommends storing these export packages in one of several solutions to avoid storage issues and maximize the availability of the course backup. 
 
One option is to store the backup file(s) in OneDrive, part of the Office365 suite available to SIUE faculty, staff, and students. Faculty can upload individual course backups, or departments or can create shared folders to store copies of multiple courses so many people can access the backups.

Another option for storing course backups so that multiple people have access to them is to utilize a Teams or SharePoint site. SharePoint is suggested if file storage is the main goal, but a Teams site (which uses SharePoint for file storage) is recommended if communication between faculty about course shell backups is also needed. Request forms are available for Teams and SharePoint sites. Additional information about both systems is available from the ITS Knowledge Base.
 
In some instances, faculty might want to download only certain content from a Bb course instead of creating a backup of the course shell. Follow the instructions in this KB article to import course content.

Contact the Blackboard administration team at bbhelp@siue.edu for questions about the 5+1 retention practice. Contact the Help Desk at help@siue.edu or 618-650-5500 for help with other technical questions such as course exports, YuJa, or OneDrive.