TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Course Lifecycle Policy
- Archive Your Course
- Save Student Work
- Back Up Your Content to a Cloud-Based Service
Course Lifecycle Policy
Courses in myLesley are disabled after a certain time period. Undergraduate and Masters' level courses are disabled 2 years from the end date of the course. Doctoral level courses are disabled 5 years from the end date of the course. Exceptions for any extended access for individual faculty to myLesley/Blackboard data beyond the course lifecycle are for research purposes only and require approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Please review the Lesley University Faculty Handbook for more information on this topic.
If you wish to archive materials from your courses, please refer to the following tutorials. We recommend that you take these steps as soon as the course has ended.
Archive Your Course
What is an Archive?
Archiving your course creates a frozen snapshot or permanent record of your course, which you may wish to reference at a later time. Please note that your archived courses will not contain student data, including student Discussion Board posts or submitted assignments.
Your archive package will download as a .zip file, which can be imported into a future myLesley course or safely saved in OneDrive on Office 365. Please note that you cannot interact with the content of the .zip file directly but must import the entire package into a myLesley/Blackboard course in order to view its contents.
Archive and Download Your Course Content (Original Course View)
To archive your course, go to the course Control Panel, select Packages and Utilities and select Export/Archive Course.
This will bring you into the Export/Archive Course Area. Click Archive Course at the top of the page.
This will bring you to the Archive Course area. Select your copy options (if you use the Grade Center in your course we recommend checking the Include Grade Center History button) and select your file attachments (in order to retain anything you have uploaded into the course we recommend selecting Copy Links and Include Copies of the Files in the Course Default Directory).
Once you have finished, click Submit. It may take several minutes for your course to archive. You will receive an email notification once the archive has completed.
Once you course has archived you must download your archive file.
To download your archive, go to the Control Panel, select Packages and Utilities and select Export/Archive Course.
This will bring you into the Export/Archive Course Area. Once your archive has processed you will see it listed on the page. Click on your file to download. Please note that you will have 30 days to download the archive file. After this time the archive package will be deleted. 
Archive and Download Your Course Content (Ultra Course View)
On the Course Content page, click on the Options Menu (three dots on the right side of the page). Select Export Course Package.
You will be asked if you want to include student activity data in your export. Student activity data includes assignment and test submissions, grades, attendance data, and discussion posts.
Please note that if you choose to include student enrollment and data that information WILL NOT be available if you import this package into another course.
It may take several minutes for your course to archive. You will receive an email notification once the archive has completed.
Once you course has archived you must download your archive file.
Once the package is ready you will see it listed on the page. Select the file name to download the package to your computer. Please note that you will have 30 days to download the archive file. After this time the archive package will be deleted.
Save Student Work
If you would like to save copies of student-submitted work, you will need to do so separately. Your archived myLesley courses will not contain student data, including student Discussion Board posts or submitted assignments.
Save Student Work (Original Course View)
Collect and Save Submitted Assignments
You may download and save all student-submitted assignments via the Grade Center. You may bulk-download students' original submissions, but must download annotated PDFs of graded assignments individually. See Download Assignments in Original Course View for detailed instructions.
Collect and Save Discussion Forums
In order to retain this information, complete with student names, you will need to collect each of your discussion forums and save them to PDF. Search and Collect Discussions in Original Course View will walk you through the process of collecting the discussion posts in your forum. Once you have collected the posts, click the Print Preview button and save as a PDF.
Save Blogs, Journals, and Wikis (convert to PDF)
In order to save student content in blogs, journals, and wikis, you will need to convert each blog, journal, or wiki page to PDF. Instructions for creating a PDF of your myLesley content may be found here: How to Make Printable Versions of your Weekly Sessions in Blackboard.
Save Student Work (Ultra Course View)
Collect and Save Submitted Assignments
You may download and save all student-submitted assignments via the Gradebook. You may bulk-download students' original submissions, but must download annotated PDFs of graded assignments individually. See Download Assignments in Ultra Course View for detailed instructions.
Collect and Save Discussions and Journals
The best way to save Discussion or Journal content is by printing the page as a PDF. To do this, go in to each discussion or student journal and print the page.
Windows users
- Open the print menu by pressing Ctrl+P.
- Under the “Printer” drop-down menu, select “Microsoft Print to PDF” or “Save as PDF”. (The exact wording may vary by browser.)
- Click “Print”.
- When prompted, choose where you want to save the file. If you're on an older version of Windows that does not have the built-in Microsoft Print to PDF printer, the Google Chrome browser provides its own “Save as PDF” option.
Mac users
- Open the print menu by pressing Command+P.
- From the PDF drop-down menu (in the lower-left corner), choose “Save as PDF”. (In Chrome you may be able to skip this step and select “Open PDF in Preview”.)
- When prompted, choose where you want to save the file.
Back Up Your Content to a Cloud-Based Service
Once you have archived and saved copies of your content to your computer, we recommend using a cloud-based storage solution, such as One Drive, Google Drive, or Dropbox, to ensure that you will be able to access your content from any computer at any time. We strongly recommend backing up all of your materials to cloud-based storage.
Lesley University provides access to Microsoft OneDrive for all faculty, staff, and students. To access your free OneDrive account, go to Microsoft Office 365 and log in with your Lesley credentials.
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