Begin Faculty Access Dates - Course Creation in Blackboard
Current Policy:
Summer courses will be created on March 9
Fall courses will be created on June 25
Spring courses will be created on November 6
The courses will be available to faculty on these dates.
Previous Policy: Approximately 6 weeks or so prior to the upcoming semester (at times it has been 4 weeks, other times 8 weeks).
Rationale for Change: To provide a consistent and predictable timeline for course availability to faculty. This will allow all faculty to begin development of their courses at an early point in time prior to the beginning of the semester.
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Current Policy: When the courses are made available in Blackboard (w/accompanying faculty access), the default for student access will be "unavailable" for all of the Bb courses. It is the instructor's responsibility and prerogative to allow access to his/her courses whenever he/she decides it is most appropriate. However, 1 week prior to the beginning of a term, all courses would automatically be made available. The instructor retains the capability to make the course unavailable/available, even after this automatic availability is facilitated.
Default dates for beginning student access:
Summer - April 13
Fall - August 13
Spring - December 25
Previous Policy: The course is available to students at all times prior to, after, and during the semester unless the faculty member changes the "Course Availability" setting themselves.
Rationale for Change: To provide faculty with time to build their course without concern of students accessing course materials that are under development. By having the course initially visible to only faculty, they will be able to copy their course and update the posted syllabus without concern of students accessing old materials or accessing materials out of sequence. Making the course available to students 1 week prior to the term allows students to see the syllabus, assignments, and other important course materials.
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Current Policy: Courses will be archived prior to their deletion/removal from the Blackboard server. Courses
will be saved on Blackboard for 3 years after the end-date of the course, and then archived for an additional 4 years.Previous Policy: Courses are archived prior to migration to a new set of hardware, or if they are deleted.
Rationale for Change: Simply making the process/timeline predictable and systematic.
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Current Policy: 3 years after the end-date of the course.
Previous Policy: Courses are presently not being deleted. This was handled in the past by not migrating old courses to new hardware when we upgrade. (e.g. the migration from Blackboard 6 to Blackboard 7's new hardware)
Rationale for Change: Simply making the process/timeline predictable and systematic. The timing is in-sync with the End of Faculty Access because faculty access is terminated by the deletion of the course from Blackboard.
Current Policy:
3 years after the end-date of the course.
Previous Policy:
Continues until course is deleted.
Rationale for change: Simply making the process/timeline predictable and systematic. Waiting until 3 years after the end-date of the course will allow sufficient time for faculty to perform “course copies” into a new course. This addresses the availability needs of typical courses as well as accommodating every-other-year courses that may be pushed back an additional term. (It is recommended that faculty "Export" their previous courses prior to deletion if they anticipate any need to reuse those course materials).
Current Policy:
Discontinue student access to courses 35 days after the end date of the course. Faculty have the ability to override and make a course available if desired.
Previous Policy:
Courses remain available to students for as long as they are on Blackboard unless the instructor sets the course to be "Unavailable".
Rationale for Change:
There has been concern expressed about students sharing materials from one of their previous courses with another student who is taking that same course presently. These concerns need to be balanced with the students ability to review their graded assignments, faculty comments on their work, and grades after the semester has completed. The proposed change provides faculty members with flexibility in terms of student access (situations involving incompletes, extended courses, etc.)
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