Archiving a Course

At the conclusion of the academic term we recommend that you save a copy (archive) of your course with the students’ records included for possible future reference. Course spaces will be maintained on the Blackboard server for two years, although the access status of courses will be set to unavailable to students automatically by the server administrator three weeks after the term ends. Archival does not remove the space from the Blackboard server; however, archived courses can be downloaded to your personal computer so that content and student data can be restored onto the Blackboard server should it be needed after the two year maintenance period has ended.

To archive a course:
1. Click on the Control Panel.
2. Under “Course Options”, click on Archive Course.
3. Click on the Archive button at the top of the page.
4. Click the Submit button.
5. Click OK.

An archive (zip file) of your course will be created and a link will appear in the Archive Course page. This can be downloaded to your computer by clicking on it.

“Reusing” a Course

Each time a course is taught a new course space must be requested for it. The main reason for this is that the term is a part of a course name; e.g., 200701_UNIV101_instructorname. When a new course space is requested, for example, 200708_UNIV101_instructorname, many elements of the original course can then be copied into the new course space for reuse. Content such as items placed in the Course Information, Course Documents, and Assignments areas can be copied into the new course space, as well as External Links, Calendar entries, Discussion Board forums, Gradebook Items and Settings, and Tests, Surveys and Test Pools, to mention a few.

To copy your course into a new course space:

1. Log into ELMS and select the link to your “old” course space.
2. Click on the Control Panel.
2. Under “Course Options”, click on Course Copy.
3. Click on the link “Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course”.
4. Under “1. Course Selection”, choose the “Destination Course ID”, by clicking on the Browse button and finding the course into which you wish to copy your materials (this would be the “new” or current term’s course space).
5. Under “2. Select Course Materials”, click on the checkboxes next to the materials that you wish to copy.
6. Click on the Submit button.

This message is to update you on our efforts to integrate our Blackboard-based ELMS environment with UMEG in order to provide a seamless method for transferring your grades from within Blackboard to UMEG.

Unfortunately, this integration will not be completed in time for this fall semester. This means that for the current and Winter 2007 terms, you will need to manually enter your grades directly in UMEG as you have done in the past.

We are sorry for the inconvenience to those who were used to having this capability in our WebCT environment. We look forward to being able to provide this capability in the near future.