I'm in the interesting position of disagreeing with the archiving policy that has been decided here (decision taken by senior managers). We are going to archive all Blackboard courses at the end of this academic year and copy them onto tape. Then, if any staff or student member wants to have sight of the courses again they will have to pay our computing service to reinstall them from tape (how they are proposing to do this I'm not sure...) After four years, all archived data will be destroyed.
I'm trying to get the policy changed before we start our end of year process. In my ideal world I'd like students to have access to previous year's material, therefore meaning that we keep up to 5 years of material on the system at any one time, before archiving to tape for an as-yet undetermined period of time (i think it's dependent on how long a student has after completing a course to make a formal complaint...). Although this does put more of an administrative burden on the Blackboard support team, I think that the potential benefit to students (being able to go back and retake a formative assessment etc) is great enough to outweigh the effort that we'll be putting in.
I'd like to use extracts from Kate and Clive's postings as part of my evidence in a note to the decision makers asking for a change of policy (if that's ok with you both :)) However, if anyone else is allowing students access to previous year's modules, I'd be be very pleased to hear from you - the more examples I've got the better!
Cheers
Sophie
Sophie Brettell
Professional Development Adviser (Blackboard)
Centre for Academic Development
External Relations Division
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
Tel: +44 (0)191 222 5565
Fax: +44 (0)191 222 7780
Web: http://bb.ncl.ac.uk/
Winner - ICG National Career Awards: Research 2002 (In partnership with
the Careers Service, University of Newcastle)
> ----------
> From: Kate Boardman
> Reply To: Kate Boardman
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 10:28 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Archiving end of year policies
>
> Clive,
>
> that's about the size of it - now you can see what I do all summer...!
>
> We have instigated archiving as standard now exactly along these lines, but
> are risking the hard drive space:
>
> Courses (using module codes to match student records) are copied with a
> suffix _2002 to provide archived access for students. Titles are updated in
> the database on a if the courseid = _2002, add _2002 to the course name.
> Staff are removed from these courses after a period of time, so they don't
> ignore the _2002 and add things to the wrong place. Existing (unsuffixed)
> courses are recycled to provide new current courses. TAs are added back in.
> We are leaving the cohorts access, in other words for all the years you are
> here, you will now see previous material.
>
> To do this, it needed 6, to keep gradebooks etc, so we haven't gone back and
> resurrected enrolments for _2001, but the archive will be continuous from
> now on.
>
> Three points:
>
> 1) There is still a massive need I feel -despite the integration tools, see
> below- for a batch unenroll feature in Bb. There is batch create, batch
> remove, batch enroll, so it can't be that damn hard.
>
> 2) Once you're on enterprise, you can use the integration tools to clear out
> / archive. There is a batch copy (I used) to create my copies (fails 1 or 2
> in 10 but still faster than manual) and there's a batch export/archive (Matt
> Deeprose was giving this a go at Soton). There's no batch recycle - you
> would need to run the integration client and use the purge tool - on manual
> update possibly. This will give you your batch unenroll, but you need to
> have got further to grips with the integration tools than we have, we can't
> make them work, whereas the copy and export are single commands piggybacking>
> on integration that you can use separately.
>
> 3) You mention a point that I've been chewing over for a while now. If we
> copy and leave access to courses for three years at a time, fair enough, we
> just get bigger hard drives. If we export to archives to keep but not
> necessarily have active on the system (you should try looking for a course
> when you've got upwards of 3500 and that's only with two years in the
> system, thank god for search by instructor, but even so...), i.e. store them
> to cd or something, keeping for QA purposes, what happens in 2006 when I
> need/want to restore 2002's courses to show QA? Will they still be accesible
> to Bbx? Are we going to need to keep them on the live system so they get
> migrated through the versions; or are we going to have to keep spare servers
> with a small installation of eg Bb5 in order that we can restore material
> when we've kept it long enough for the package not to want to restore in the
> current version? I can see this becoming an issue as we get more heavily
> reliant on the system, and whilst I don't think it's an enormous one (we
> even have one pc with a floppy floppy drive for that professor that toddles
> in one day with a 5" diskette) but I do think that longer term planning is
> becoming important, and I think you have about as coherent a 'policy' there
> as any of us have.
>
> Anyone out there with a better one, but keeping quiet in response to Clive
> as they don't have a 'written' policy, own up!
>
> Kate
>
> actually, there's a 4) Some departments have opted out of the archive, as
> they upload documents which include model answers on the pdf as the tutorial
> workings, and fear that students may run an enterprising sideline in access
> to the compulsory weekly test answers. This is proving a bit of a nightmare,
> but beware, a ruling from above or from your office may not fit
> appropriately to all departments.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Kate Boardman
> Learning Technologies Team
> IT Service
> University of Durham
> South Road
> Durham DH1 3LE
>
> t. 0191 334 2778
> e. [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> w. http://www.dur.ac.uk/k.l.boardman
>
> duo: http://duo.dur.ac.uk
> BbUK: http://www.dur.ac.uk/ltteam/bbuk
> IT Service: http://www.dur.ac.uk/ITS/duo/
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MLE Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Clive Richards
> Sent: 12 July 2003 16:22 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Archiving end of year policies
>
>
> Not had too many responses to my plea for written policies - feel that
> suggests that many of us are still "flying by the seat of our pants"!
>
> Can anyone offer ideas for one particular area and that is archiving of
> previous years courses. Our situation (which I guess may be mirrored
> around UK) is that we use module code as the course code- this is the only
> useful method I can find of using our student record files for batch
> enrolling students on their modules.
>
> Our dilemma is that the module codes are constant from year to year so
> ideally we need to be able to recycle the courses (modules) each year for
> the new intake but at the same time keep the previous years module
> available for the students in that year to refer back to should they need
> to. We also feel that maybe we should then archive the modules complete
> with all interactions for a period of time as yet undetermined.
>
> At the moment we individually copy all modules to a new course file with
> say an 02-03 prefix in front to determine the year (compatibility with
> student records system no longer being an issue) Then we individually
> recycle all un-prefixed modules to clear them of this years student data
> etc. This means that existing students can see their module site for one
> year after they finish it. We also remove the instructors from the 02-03>
> modules so they dont end up with a confusing duplication in their "my
> university"(my institution) page.
>
> This year we are now thinking that we also need to archive the 01-02
> modules and then delete them otherwise we will end up with three times the
> number of modules than we actually run!
>
> The real issue seems to be the lack of any kind of batch or bulk method of
> doing any of this other than the final removal of the archived modules.
> (possible a page at a time using the tick boxes) At the moment we are
> running about 250 modules which is just about managable however next year
> this will start to increase dramatically.
>
> We are (or will be by next weekend I hope) running Blackboard 6 enterprise
> edition of the learning system on windows 2k SQL server. I wonder has
> anyone found ways of doing this by maybe directly querying the SQL course
> database. No doubt if I approached BB with fists full of dollars they
> would eventually come up with something (well maybe) but it occurs to me
> that someone may have worked it out for themselves and might be willing to
> share it in exchange for a Blackboard Bendy (dont ask!!)
>
> Oh well if you must know its a snake like piece of plastic that can be
> bent into any shape and carries the BB web address - whatever posessed BB
> to buy these little gifts is totally beyond me - the sponge stress balls
> at least had a use - you could hurl them at your computer screen when You
> were totally frustrated with BB!
>
>
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