Retaining and Retrieving Previous Course Content (Course Retention Standard)

Blackboard Access Will End June 2026

The Course Retention Standard Has Been Updated to Reflect the Blackboard Retirement

Blackboard access will end for OHIO users in June 30, 2026, aligning with the Canvas Learning Management System Implementation Timeline. Please see the information on course retention below for courses taught

• Before Summer 2019
• Summer 2019 and beyond

If you would like to retain your Blackboard course content, review the instructions on Saving Blackboard Content  or Moving Course Content from Blackboard to Canvas.

Description

Since Ohio University is transitioning from Blackboard to Canvas through June 2026, a transitional approach to archiving will be in place until June 2028. OIT will leverage an external archiving product starting in Summer 2025 to support the archival of Blackboard data that would formerly have been archived internally within Blackboard.

Academic courses taught before Summer 2019, will be permanently deleted before the Blackboard retirement, as noted in the deletion schedule below.  This includes courses that had been previously granted exceptions.

Note: The archiving process will involve OIT restoring formerly archived courses to transfer them to an external archiving product. During this time, older courses will be visible in instructor and student Blackboard dashboards for approximately one month. After courses are transferred to the external archiving product, courses will be permanently deleted from Blackboard and will no longer be visible within Blackboard.

• Course retention standard
• Definitions
• Restore an archived course for review
• Schedule of deletion

Environment

Blackboard

Course Retention Standard

The original course retention standard applies to courses taught through Spring 2018-19 and before.  The original standard states that academic courses will be visible to instructors for two years after the course end date, at which point the courses will become archived internally within Blackboard.  Archived courses are eligible for deletion after 5 years.  

Since Ohio University is transitioning from Blackboard to Canvas through June 2026, a transitional approach to archiving will be in place until June 2028. OIT will leverage an external archiving product starting in Summer 2025 to support the archival of Blackboard data that would formerly have been archived internally within Blackboard.

• Instructors are encouraged to create and keep a local export (copy) of their own courses. Exports of courses will include content created by the instructor but automatically exclude any student work or submissions. Instructions to export and archive courses are available here.

Course Taught Summer 2019 and Beyond

• Course retention period: For all academic courses that conclude between May 2019 and December 2025, the University will retain a copy of the course until June 2028 in a third-party archiving product managed by OIT. 

Note: Academic courses are defined as courses generated from OHIO’s Student Information System (PeopleSoft) for academic credit. This does not include Blackboard organizations, test courses, continuing education (non-credit, manually created instructional experiences), or any other kind of manually created courses. Instructors must save this type of content on their own if they wish to retain it.

Definitions

The following definitions will be used for the description of the course retention standard: 

• Blackboard Course: All for-credit courses are automatically created in Blackboard eight (8) weeks prior to their start date. 
• Archived Courses: All Blackboard courses, up to and including those taught during Spring 18-19, are automatically archived two (2) years after their end date, at which point, they are no longer visible in Blackboard. 
• External Archived Course: All Blackboard courses taught during and following Spring 2018-19, externally archived until June 2028.  
• Course End Date: The published end date of the course (which may or may not correspond with the semester end date).  
• Course Restoration: A process completed by the IT Service Desk to restore a previously archived course, so it is again visible in the instructor's Blackboard course list.

Restore an Archived Course for Review

Courses that have been archived within Blackboard and have not yet been deleted from Blackboard can be restored. Courses that have already been deleted from Blackboard cannot be restored.  The move of academic courses from Summer 2019 and later to the external archiving product will involve OIT restoring those formerly archived courses.  During this time, older courses will be visible to instructors and students within Blackboard for approximately one month.  Your Panopto content linked to these courses will also be visible during this period.  We recommend that you consider reviewing your old course content at that time.  After courses are transferred to the external archiving product, courses will be deleted from Blackboard.

Blackboard Internal Archives

To request the review of an archived course, that is still archived within Blackboard, a current Ohio University faculty/staff member enrolled as an instructor in the course may contact the IT Service Desk with the following information:  

• Subject: Request to Review Archived Blackboard Course 
• Blackboard Course ID (For Example, MATH_1000_001_LAB_SPRG_2010-11) 
  • At a minimum, include: Subject [MATH], Course Number [1000], Term it was taught [Spring of 2010-11] 
• The Ohio ID of the instructor 

Note: Please allow five (5) to seven (7) business days for your request to be processed. If your course has already been archived externally or has been deleted, OIT will notify you about the status of your course. Content that is archived externally will be available for instructors, but the process will be managed with the external product and Canvas, it will not occur within Blackboard.

Outcome: When your request is processed you will be granted access to view the course for one (1) week.  The course will then be returned to archive unless an exception is granted.

External Archives

To request the review of a course that has been archived externally a current Ohio University faculty/staff member enrolled as an instructor in the course may contact the IT Service Desk and request a consultation with a learning systems analyst.  

Exceptions

Instructors were previously allowed to request that a course not be included in the course retention process by requesting an exception.  As we are retiring Blackboard and must removal all content from within our Blackboard system before June 2026, exceptions will no longer be granted.  Any courses that had been previously granted an exception, will be deleted or archived according to the retention standards.  Please see schedule of deletion below for more details.  

Schedule of Deletion

Courses Taught Summer 2019 and Beyond

Since Ohio University is transitioning from Blackboard to Canvas through June 2026, a transitional approach to course archiving will be in place until June 2028. OIT will leverage an external archiving product starting in Summer 2025 to support the archival of Blackboard data that would  have previously been archived within Blackboard. 

The external Blackboard archiving will begin in June 2025. The archiving process requires that formerly archived courses are restored and made visible in Blackboard for approximately a month before being transferred to the external archive tool. After courses are transferred to the external archiving product, they will be deleted from Blackboard.

Courses Taught Before Summer 2019

All courses taught in Blackboard in Spring 2018-19 or before will be deleted prior to the shutdown of Blackboard, which is outlined in the deletion schedule below:
 

Course Taught Summer 2019 and Later

Governance 

This standard will be reviewed by the Teaching and Learning Advisory Community and the IT Strategy and Governance Committee based on fluctuations in the technology landscape, and/or changes to established practices and mandates.  

Reviewers 

The reviewers of this standard are members of the Teaching and Learning Advisory Community and the IT Strategy and Governance Committee. The Director and Chairs Council and EPSA have also reviewed the draft standard.  

History 

Draft version of this standard has been approved on February 17, 2021. 

Get Help From OIT

• Visit the Learning Management System: Blackboard page to create a ticket
• Visit the Technology Resources and Training page for an OIT training 

Additional Resources

• Blackboard Learn Help for Instructors - Original View
• Blackboard Learn Help for Students - Original View
• Quick Start for the Blackboard Mobile App
• Publisher Content & Add-ons
• System Requirements