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Faculty, Have You Run Out of Space in Blackboard?
Posted November 6, 2018
By: Laura Million
We receive reports from faculty reaching their quota limit in Blackboard. What does that mean? Each Blackboard course can hold up to 2GB of content in its Content Collection. Every file an instructor uploads to a course (.pdf, .docx, video and audio files, etc.) will remain in its Content Collection, even if it's deleted from Coursework or another content area. While 2GB might be plenty of space for course Word documents and PDF files, large PowerPoint files, video, and other multimedia content will quickly use up that amount of storage. Here are some suggestions to get the most use out of your course space in Blackboard:
- Stream your videos. Videos are the number one culprits when it comes to maxing out course quotas. The easiest remedy is to stream your videos externally - for example, through a service like YouTube, Microsoft Stream, or SIUE's Streaming Server - and then link to the videos in your course. This article describes some video streaming options and this article shows how to add videos back into a course as a web link.
- Clean up the Course Content folder of unused files. If you have a syllabus from every semester since the Spring of 2015 and they still in your Fall 2018 course, download the files to your computer or store them on OneDrive and delete the files from the Course Content folder. These are copies and will not affect previous semester's Blackboard course shells.
- Remove duplicate files. If you see files with the same name and (1), (2) after the file name, you probably have duplicate files. These duplicate files are created when you upload a file of the same name more than once. Blackboard keeps the original file and designates the new file with (1), (2), etc. Delete files that are not actively shown to students in your course. Hint: If the file does not have a red, orange, or green accessibility indicator to the right of the name, it is not in the course for students to see. Also, if you try to delete a file and it IS in the course for students, Blackboard will warn you before letting you finish the deletion.
- Remove old export folders. You may see folder named CourseID_ImportedContent_BunchOfNumbers in your Course Content folder. These are folders that brought files over from previous courses through the import process. Sometimes these files are linked in your course, sometimes the files are duplicates. Click though each folder until you find the files. There may be several layers of folders. If the files are being used in the current course, move the files out of the “ImportContent” folder and into the main Course Content folder or other folder. Moving a file will not break the link in your course. If the files are not being used, download the file(s) to your computer and delete the file(s) from Blackboard.
- Reduce the size of your PowerPoint files. High resolution photos add unnecessary megabytes to your files. Follow these instructions to reduce the size of the PowerPoints.
- Move large files to OneDrive. If any file (PowerPoint, video file, etc.) is over 10MB, consider uploading the files to OneDrive and link to them though Blackboard. Follow these instructions to upload and share the OneDrive file. See the article “Options for Storing Course Videos Outside of Blackboard” for additional options for videos.
As always, if you need help cleaning up your Course Content folder or any other help with Blackboard, contact us at 650-5500 or email us at help@siue.edu.
