Getting Ready for the End of the Semester
Download a PDF file for your convenience - Getting Ready for the End of the Semester.
Archive/Export Course Package: Blackboard courses are retained in the live Blackboard system for one (1) Academic Year plus one (1) semester. After this time expires, the courses are archived, removed from Blackboard, and stored for five years. If you prefer to download your own Archive/Export of the course, follow the guidance on Export and Archive Courses from the Blackboard Help Center.
Course Content Cleanup: It is recommended as a best practice to limit Blackboard course and organization site size to 1 GB or under for improved performance and to reduce storage costs for NDSU. Please view our Check Course Size & Cleanup Unused Content in Blackboard Ultra article for instructions on the cleanup process.
Download the Grade Center/Gradebook: Do you prefer to save your Blackboard grade book to a file on your computer at the end of the semester? To learn more, visit Download Grades from Gradebook.
Download Student Assignments: You can download assignment submissions to review them offline. To learn more, visit Download Assessments to learn more.
Extra Credit Notes: Are you planning to add an extra credit assignment to your course, or have you already added one? Please make sure that your extra credit grades are included in the Overall Grade calculation. To learn more about setting up extra credit, please visit the Extra Credit Assessments article.
Grades Import in Campus Connection: Instructors can import final grades from Blackboard into Campus Connection. To learn more about this process, visit our Blackboard Ultra - Final Grade Integration to Campus Connection article.
Video and FERPA: If you plan to reuse any video recordings (Zoom or YuJa), please be aware of the NDSU FERPA Policy.
YuJa Video Storage Cleanup & Purge Policy: YuJa is not intended as a long-term storage platform. YuJa videos that have not been viewed for 1 (one) year are removed on a rolling basis. If you only teach this course every two years, consider downloading the YuJa files and re-uploading them the next time the course is taught. For more information about the NDSU retention schedule, please visit our Video Recording Purge (Delete) Schedule article.
Zoom Cloud Storage Cleanup: Zoom cloud recordings are meant to be temporary (current semester or less). If you have recordings you would like to keep, download them and delete the others. To learn more about this process, visit Zoom Cloud Recording Management.
Instructional Design: As you start planning for next semester, our team of instructional designers is here to help develop new courses, redesign existing ones, and provide course reviews. If you would like to work with an Instructional Designer, please view our Instructional Design Consultations page and submit a consultation request.
Ultra Course Experience: To learn more about the different features, visit our Blackboard Ultra Resources for Instructors