SIUE is adopting a Bb retention practice to reduce the amount of contracted storage space needed in Bb and to improve the overall efficiency of the LMS. The new practice will be a 5 + 1 model, where course shells from the previous 5 semesters plus shells from the current semester will be retained in Bb.
At present, course shells for the previous 17 semesters, dating back to FA15, are stored in Blackboard.
SIUE is adopting a Bb retention practice to reduce the amount of contracted storage space needed in Bb and to improve the overall efficiency of the LMS. The new practice will be a 5 + 1 model, where course shells from the previous 5 semesters plus shells from the current semester will be retained in Bb.
Course shells outside of the 5 + 1 frame will be removed from the LMS, stored locally (in case a course backup was not created but one is needed), and then permanently deleted after one year. Future semesters that fall outside of the 5 + 1 model will likewise be backed up locally for one year before being permanently deleted.
The 5 + 1 retention practice will go into effect on June 30th, 2021. The initial 5 + 1 set of course shells will include the following semesters:
- Fall 2019
- Spring 2020
- Summer 2020
- Fall 2020
- Spring 2021
- Summer 2021
The course shells outside of that 5 + 1 set will be retained locally by ITS until June 30th, 2022.
- Fall 2015
- Spring 2016
- Summer 2016
- Fall 2016
- Spring 2017
- Summer 2017
- Fall 2017
- Spring 2018
- Summer 2018
- Fall 2018
- Spring 2019
- Summer 2019
Contact the Blackboard administration team at bbhelp@siue.edu for questions about the 5 + 1 retention practice.
All Blackboard course shells have a maximum limit of 2 GB. Exports cannot be generated for course shells that exceed the 2 GB limit so, as a result, 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, it is strongly recommended to store these types of files outside of Bb.
With security being the concern that it is today, systems such as TechSmith Knowmia (video) and OneDrive (audio and documents) are recommended. These services are free to all SIUE faculty and students.
Faculty and students are encouraged to use YuJa (https://siue.yuja.com/) to store video files. Videos recorded using the Zoom cloud function are automatically transferred to and stored in YuJa and automatically closed captioned. For videos that need to be placed in (faculty lectures) or uploaded to (student assignments) Bb, faculty and students will only need to get a link to use in Bb (https://kb.siue.edu/118046).
If faculty have existing video content to upload to YuJa, instructions for this process are available at: https://kb.siue.edu/117457.
Although smaller files like syllabi and related documents don’t take up much course space, some larger document, presentation, 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 (https://kb.siue.edu/61722, https://kb.siue.edu/54503).
Additional information:
TechSmith Knowmia: https://www.siue.edu/its/training/YuJa/Intro/#/
Microsoft OneDrive https://kb.siue.edu/search.php?q=onedrive
ITS Knowledge Base: https://kb.siue.edu/
Contact the ITS Help Desk at (618) 650-5500 or help@siue.edu if you have questions about YuJa or OneDrive. Contact the Blackboard administration team at bbhelp@siue.edu for questions about the 5 + 1 retention practice.
Faculty are encouraged to export Bb course shells to keep a copy for future use (https://kb.siue.edu/53717). While faculty can store course backups locally, ITS recommends storing these export packages in one of several solutions to avoid storage issues and to 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 (https://kb.siue.edu/70065) or departments or units can create shared folders to store copies of multiple courses so many people can access the backups (https://kb.siue.edu/55602).
Other options 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 (https://kb.siue.edu/87072) and SharePoint (https://kb.siue.edu/70806) sites. Additional information about both systems is available from the ITS Knowledge Base at: https://kb.siue.edu/
In some instances, faculty might want to download only certain content from a Bb course instead of creating a backup of the course shell. Faculty needing to download only select content items can follow the instructions available at: https://kb.siue.edu/109507
Contact the ITS Help Desk at (618) 650-5500 or help@siue.edu if you have questions about file storage using OneDrive, Teams, or SharePoint. Contact the Blackboard administration team at bbhelp@siue.edu for questions about the 5 + 1 retention practice.
As previously announced, SIUE is adopting a Blackboard (Bb) retention practice. In the 5 + 1 model, course shells from the previous 5 semesters plus the current semester will be retained in Bb. Course shells outside of the 5 + 1 frame will be removed from Bb, stored locally by ITS, and then permanently deleted after one year. The 5 + 1 retention practice will go into effect on June 30, 2021. Additional information is available at: https://www.siue.edu/its/bb/5-plus-1.shtml
