Blackboard courses should be made unavailable at the end of each semester.  Please review the following checklist before making the course unavailable:

• The semester has ended.
• Finals are over.
• Your students have completed all course work for your course.
• Your students have had a chance to review their grades.
• Your students no longer need access to the course for any reason.

If the above is all true, please make the course unavailable by completing the steps below under "Making Courses Unavailable".

If you have one or more students that will need to continue to have access to the course (for example to complete work related to an "I" grade), DO NOT perform the "Making Courses Unavailable" steps at this time, but instead complete the steps further below under "Alternate Incomplete Grades Procedure").

Making Courses Unavailable:

1. In the course "Control Panel", click "Properties" under "Customization".
2. For "Make Course Available", under "Set Availability", select "No".
3. Click "Submit".

Notes:

• You should also Archive the course after completing the steps above.  Term-specific course shells, created by default by Blackboard for each section represented on the registration system, will remain on the Blackboard system for reference for approximately 2 years, and will not be re-used for future semesters.  However, after they are removed from the system, any data or content associated with those term-specific courses will no longer be available unless you have saved, exported and/or archived that data onto your computer.
• Performing the steps above will not affect the course in any way, and will not remove students. It will only make the course unavailable to students.  DO NOT remove students from these courses.
• For the period in which they remain on the Blackboard system, these courses may be used as a source course for copying content into course shells for future semesters.

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Alternate Incomplete Grades Procedure:

If there are one or more students needing continued access to the course, you will not make the course itself unavailable, but rather you will make access unavailable individually for each of the students that no longer need access to the course.

1. In the course "Control Panel", click "Users and Groups", then "Users".
2. Use the “Search” function to locate one of the students who no longer needs access to the course.  (For accuracy, it is best to search by user name.)
3. Using the action link next to the student's user name, select "Edit".
4. Scroll down until you see "Role and Availability".
5. Under "Available", use the drop-down box to select "No".
6. Click "Submit".
7. Repeat for each student who no longer needs access to the course.
8. Once all students have completed all course work for the course, reviewed grades and no longer need access to the course for any reason, please make the course unavailable by completing the steps above under "Making Courses Unavailable".

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