This document outlines requirements for maintaining and protecting VCU courses that reside in the Blackboard Learning System, based on the State of Virginia’s Records Management policies as they apply to VCU.
A schedule for the removal of courses from the Blackboard Learning System is essential to ensure:
data integrity
a manageable database size for speed and performance of the system
Students - All courses on the Blackboard Learning System are available to students enrolled in the course for the current term and two weeks after the add/drop date of the following term.
Faculty – Blackboard courses will remain on the Blackboard System for a total of 6 consecutive terms, including the current term, available to the faculty assigned to teach the course. (See Example 1 below.)
Once a term ends, two weeks after the add/drop date of the following term Blackboard courses for the recently completed term will be:
1. set to “unavailable” to prevent student access
2. visible and accessible to the instructor(s) for six consecutive terms
3. archived to a .zip format and stored in a secure archive location
4. available for restoration for a period of 15 terms from the end date of the term in which the course was taught.
NOTE: The purpose of this archive is to ensure a copy of the course in its final end-of-semester state is available for future reference, grade challenges, etc. Any changes to the course while it remains on the Blackboard Learn System after it has been archived will not be saved or updated in the archive storage location.
Instructors are encouraged to create and keep a local archive of their courses. (See related information links listed at the end of this page.)
Example 1
| 15 consecutive terms of Blackboard courses available from archive storage and/or the Blackboard System |
| 2016Spring - current active semester - on the Bb System |
| 2015Fall - archive storage and on the Bb System |
| 2015Summer - archive storage and on the Bb System |
| 2015Spring - archive storage and on the Bb System |
| 2014Fall - archive storage and on the Bb System |
| 2014Summer - archive storage and on the Bb System |
| 2014Spring - archive storage (removed from the Blackboard System 2 weeks after the add/drop for 2016Summer.) |
| 2013Fall - archive storage |
| 2013Summer - archive storage |
| 2013Spring - archive storage |
| 2012Fall - archive storage |
| 2012Summer - archive storage |
| 2012Spring - archive storage |
| 2011Fall - archive storage |
| 2011Summer - archive storage |
Course Removal
All Blackboard courses are available for restoration for a period of 15 terms from the end date of the term in which the course was taught. After that time, the archived courses will be permanently deleted from archive storage, and no longer recoverable.
A course taught in Spring 2010, will be removed from archive storage after the start of Spring 2016.
Refer to Example 1 above - courses from Spring 2010 and older are no longer available.