Transitioning to the next semester: Blackboard Course Updates

As we are nearing to the completion of the Fall 2018 term, the eLearning Center would like to remind instructors take some important steps to back up your course sites and transition to the next semester.

Backing up your grades is critical because once a student withdraws, leaves, or graduates from Gallaudet University, his/her grades will disappear with the student. There is no way to retrieve the lost grades if he/she decides to return.  The important tasks to back up your courses include:

• Saving a backup of your Grade Center

• Exporting/archiving your course site

• Copying course content from a previous semester’s course site

Please see Semester Transition knowledge article from our IT Service Desk: https://gallaudet.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0010142

Reminder: All Blackboard courses older than three (3) years are purged from our system. The purging occurs at the end of the semester. This action was proposed in the November 16, 2011 faculty meeting and passed.  Courses that are removed cannot be restored to Blackboard unless the course was copied, archived, or exported prior to the removal.

New course shells have already been created for the Spring 2019 semester.  Currently, all Spring 2019 courses are automatically hidden (unavailable) and students are not enrolled at this time.  Two (2) weeks prior to the first day of the Spring 2019 term, the students will be enrolled in courses. Students will not have access to the course until the courses are set to be available by the instructor.

Instructions to make your course available : https://gallaudet.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0010032