If you added content to one of these course shells and/or used them to provide content to students, you may have already archived them at the end of that term, and the archive would be saved on your computer. If you did not archive the course, you should do so by October 2, 2008, 11:59 p.m. (Central Time).

If you have archived these courses previously, you might consider archiving again to take advantage of enhancements applied to the Archive feature in Blackboard over the past couple of years.

The primary purpose for archiving is to preserve course content and data as it exists at the point of archiving (usually at the end of a semester). At this time, there is no provision for allowing instructors to view or restore an archive file. This must be done through a special procedure at the Blackboard administrator level by certain Office of Distance Education staff. This process may be used for resolving disputes or verifying certain types of information after the course is removed from the Blackboard system. This would be a rare occurrence, since we actually leave the courses on Blackboard, fully accessible by instructors for 2 years. Courses removed after 2 years have a much lower likelihood of anyone needing access.

If you feel that one of these courses needs to remain on Blackboard for an extended period of time, you may request a 1 year extension by replying to this message by September 16, 2008, 4:30 p.m. (Central Time). You should include your name, Blackboard user name, the Blackboard Course ID (which can be copied from the course Control Panel or from your "My Courses" list), and the reason you need the extension (i.e. student needing to complete an "I" grade, student access needed for some other reason, etc.). If you are unsure how to provide the Blackboard Course ID, you may provide the year, term, course ID, section, call number and course title instead.

Archive files are not intended for capturing and restoring course content for later use. If you feel you need access to course content in one of these courses, and you do not have that content saved in its original form on your computer, you may either save individual files out of Blackboard onto your computer, or you may use the Export feature in your Blackboard course to export a content only package to your computer, which can be imported by you into another course on Blackboard at a later time. This is similar to the Course Copy feature, except you are capturing the content to a special file on your computer that you will then be able to import later into another course on Blackboard using the Import feature. (The Course Copy feature copies content between two courses which are both still on Blackboard.) If you need to export or save content out to your computer from these courses, you need to do so by October 2, 2008, 11:59 p.m. (Central Time).

Again, the dates to remember regarding the removal of Summer 2006 Blackboard course shells are:

September 16, 2008 - deadline for requesting an extension.
October 2, 2008 - deadline for archiving or exporting courses.
October 3, 2008 - courses will be permanently removed from Blackboard.

If you have questions about archiving, exporting, the removal of courses, extension requests, etc., please contact us and we will be glad to provide further explanation or information.

We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.