TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Course Lifecycle Policy
• Archive Your Course and Download the Archive Package
• Save and Download Student Work
• Back Up Your Content to a Cloud-Based Service
• Import a Course Package

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, we recommend that you take these steps as soon as the course has ended. 

Archive Your Course and Download the Archive Package

Archiving your course creates a fixed snapshot, or a permanent record of your course, which you can refer to later. The archive package downloads as a compressed (.zip) file that you can import into a new Blackboard course or your My Space. Please note that student data (such as discussion posts and submitted assignments) is not included when you import the archive into a new course. 

Archiving courses is a two step process. First, you will create the course archive. Once the archive has completed, you will need to go back into your course and download the archive file.

Note: Archive packages are downloaded as compressed (.zip) files. To access the content, you must import the package into a Blackboard course. Do not unzip the archive or remove any files, as this will prevent the content from importing correctly.

Archive an Ultra Course 

On the Course Content page, click the More Options (three dots) button to open a menu. 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. 

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 the archive package.

Once the package is ready you will see it listed on the page. Select the file name to download the package to your computer. 

You will have 30 days to download the archive. After this time the archive package will be deleted. 

Archive an Original Course

To archive your Original 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 the archive package.

Once the package is ready you will see it listed on the Export/Archive Course page. Click on the file name to download. 

You will have 30 days to download the archive. After this time the archive package will be deleted. 

Save and Download Student Work

If you would like to save copies of student-submitted work, you will need to do so individually. Your archived myLesley courses will not contain student data, including discussions, assignments, tests, and journal entries. 

Download Student Assignment Submissions

You can download your students' assignment submissions to review or store them offline. You may download individual students' submissions individually or in bulk. If you used Bb Annotate for inline annotations and comments, you will need to download the annotated PDFs individually. 

Ultra Courses

To download an individual student's assignment submission, navigate to the student's submission. 

1. You may download the original submission by clicking on the Download icon at the top of the page.
2. If you used Bb Annotate for inline annotations and comments, you may download the annotated PDF by clicking on the Download button in the Bb Annotate toolbar.

You may also bulk download all students' submissions for an individual assignment via the Gradebook. For more information and detailed instructions, refer to the Download Assessments in Ultra Courses support article.

Original Courses

To download an individual's assignment submission, navigate to the student's submission. 

1. You may download the original submission by clicking on the Download icon in the Assignment Details panel.
2. If you used Bb Annotate for inline annotations and comments, you may download the annotated PDF by clicking on the Download button in the Bb Annotate toolbar.

You may also bulk download all students' submissions for an individual assignment via the Grade Center. For more information and detailed instructions, refer to the Download Assignments in Original Courses support article. 

Save Student Discussion Posts, Journal Entries, and Test Submissions

The best way to save students' discussion posts, journal entries, and test submissions is by navigating to each individual student's content and printing the page as a PDF. 

Note: In Original courses, you will need to collect your Discussion forums before printing them to PDF.

Print to PDF on Windows:

• 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.

Print to PDF on MacOS:

• 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 downloaded your course archive and saved copies of your content to your computer, we recommend backing up your content to 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. 

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. 

Import a Course Package

When you archive a course, it creates a ZIP package. Do not unzip the archive package or delete files as then the contents cannot be imported correctly.

If you wish to reuse or review your archived course, you may import it into a new Blackboard course or your My Space. When you import a course package all of the content will come over in bulk, including the course content, Announcements, grade columns, due dates, etc.

To import a course package, go to the course where you wish to import content. On the Course Content page, click the More Options (three dots) button to open a menu. Select Import Content.

This will open a panel. Select Import Course Content and select your course package.

The import process may take several minutes, depending on the size of your course package. 

For more information and detailed instructions, refer to the Import Course Packages support page.