University of Louisville Course Sites and Course Content Retention Procedure

Purpose:

Define how long course sites and course content will be retained in the Learning Management Systems (LMS), currently Blackboard.

This procedure establishes guidelines for University of Louisville’s retention rules for course sites being stored in University of Louisville’s Blackboard Learning Management Systems. This procedure is designed to reduce the number of historic courses currently being viewed in the Blackboard course list view, decrease the amount of storage costs, and adhere to Blackboard’s support procedure.

General/Definitions: For purposes of this procedure, unless otherwise stated, the following definitions shall apply:

Course Sites: A site created within Blackboard that is specific to a single course being offered during a specific semester at University of Louisville.
Archive(d): The process of decommissioning data into a format that can be restored when required. Archived data will remain active for a predetermined period after which will be permanently deleted from University of Louisville’s systems.
Restoration: Refers to the activity of pulling archived data back into an accessible state.

Organizational Scope:

This procedure applies to all courses taught in the Undergraduate and Graduate programs. The procedure refers to all courses automatically generated in the registration system and subsequently populated in Blackboard. Additionally, this procedure refers to any restored or otherwise manually created (GUI) added courses by Delphi and/or Information Technology.

Guiding Principles:

To retain course sites and course content for a period of time which instructors, students, staff and administrators find adequate and useful
To optimize the performance of the LMS
To ensure that storage space is used efficiently and minimize the financial impact of system backups and increasing disk storage
To adhere to the Blackboard support procedure

Course Data Quotas

A course data quota will be placed on all courses in the LMS. The course quota is 500 MB and the individual file size limit is 25 MB. Users are responsible for reducing the size of content within their courses and should follow the guidelines for reducing content in the LMS. Instructors can check the size of their courses using the Course Size tool found in the Course Tools area of your course.

Procedure Content and Guidelines:

Blackboard course sites will be retained for a period of 4 (four) years. After that period, the course sites will be permanently deleted. This includes all files, grades, assignments, quizzes, surveys, links, videos and anything else associated with the course site.

If you are unable to locate a course within Blackboard contact the Blackboard helpdesk for assistance at bbsupport@louisville.edu or at 502.852.8833 or complete the Restore Course form.

Instructors are also encouraged to create and keep a local archive of their own courses. View the Instructor Guide for creating archives.

Questions regarding this procedure can also be sent to bbsupport@louisville.edu or at 502.852.8833.