A few weeks ago, we posted instructions for exporting your course gradebooks to keep for your records. This week, we are going to help you take your summer “housekeeping” a step further by detailing how, and why, to export or archive your courses. When you export or archive a course from Blackboard, your course is condensed into a single ZIP folder that you can save to a computer or storage device for safe keeping. In both instances, your course layout, assignments, exams, grading schemas, adaptive release criteria, etc, are preserved within this ZIP folder. This ZIP folder can then be uploaded into Blackboard at a later date to recreate these components. However, archiving and exporting differ in one very important area: exporting a course does not preserve student data, whereas archiving a course does preserve student data. When archiving a course, the final ZIP folder also contains student enrollment, assignment submissions, grades, discussion board and wiki contributions, and ...
The Winthrop University Office of Online Learning (WOOL) blog is a supplementary tool to support faculty and staff in the pursuit of developing their knowledge and skills using Blackboard and integrating instructional technology in higher education.