Backing up your Blackboard Course

Using Blackboard CE, you (the course instructor) can backup each of your courses and save the archive file to your local computer. Should you back up your courses? At JCCC, a full or incremental backup of the Blackboard production database is made daily. if you request it, you can also have your courses backed up daily by contacting the Help Desk with the CRN of each course. Still, many faculty like the assurance of having their own backup, especially if they are about to make major changes or additions to their online course materials or have just completing making changes. If you want the extra "insurance" we recommend that you archive your course before and after you make any major changes as well as at the end of the semester. The backup should then be downloaded to your local machine. Although faculty do not have access to restore a backup to the production server, the JCCC system administrator can do so; this is a precaution so that current student activity is not inadvertently overwritten by a someone restoring a course backup without first considering the effect on current student work and activity.

There is a tutorial movie that covers this process at Creating a Blackboard CE Course Backup Movie. The steps include:

1. From the Build or Teach tab in your Blackboard CE course select Manage Course.
2. Select Backup.
3. To create a new archive, select Back Up Course.
4. To save the backup as a file, use the ActionLink of the backup and select Save as File.
5. You will then be asked to choose where to save the file. You may save it in either My Files or Class Files. The default file name will include the full course title, as well as the date and time the backup was created. You may change this filename if you wish, but be sure to leave the file extension .bak at the end.
6. Once the Save as File action is complete, you should download the file to your computer.
7. From the Build tab in your course, choose File Manager.
8. In the File Manager, navigate to the location where you saved the backup file (My Files or Class Files). You will see the backup file that you created.
9. Use the file’s ActionLink and select the Download option. If prompted whether to Open or Save the file, choose Save to Disk. If prompted, decide where on your computer to save the file, and select Save or OK.

Thanks to Jeff Kosko for this tip.

Backing Up and Deleting Courses

In case you’re wondering about standard operating procedure regarding when courses are deleted off the JCCC Blackboard CE server:

1. Production “credit” course shells will be removed from the server about 1 month into the next subsequent semester, however, spring courses will not be removed until 1 month into the following fall semester.
2. Each semester the academic director of the Educational Technology Center will alert faculty members about 2 weeks into the semester that courses will be deleted unless they request otherwise, e.g. to accommodate contract incomplete grades, self-paced courses, etc.
3. Self-paced courses (950 sections) are the exception, they’ll stay online for a full year and a month after the start date, and then they’ll be removed.
4. Before any course is removed a backup will be made by Academic Computing Services and stored. If backups are needed in the future, IS will retrieve the backups as needed.
5. As an added precaution, faculty members are encouraged to backup their own courses after the end of each semester or after they make any significant changes to the course (e.g. add an epack, add a new module, make a significant revision, and so on). The backup made by faculty members should not be stored only in the course shell, but should be downloaded to the instructor’s workstation and then copied to media such as a CD or DVD. The instructor’s Ed Tech Center Designer can assist you with this process if needed.
6. “Z - Dev courses” (those used for course development, will not be automatically deleted. Faculty members should periodically review their list of “Z – Dev Courses” (to determine if the development course shell is still needed) and when appropriate, request that the course data be backed up and deleted.

If the instructor needs a refresher on how to create a course Backup, there’s a Flash movie and PDF printout covering the process available at http://web.jccc.edu/edtech/notes/get.asp?DocumentID=177.

Instructors should be aware that the way to download the backup file to your computer is a little circuitous, but not hard.

1. Once the Status of the backup is "Complete", you use the ActionLinks next to the name of the Backup file and choose "Save as File."
2. Unfortunately, the only choices for where to put the file are My Files or Class Files (My Computer is not an option). We recommend choosing My Files.
3. After saving the file (make a note of the filename), go back to the My Blackboard screen and click on the Content Manager tab - this accesses the My Files area.
4. Find the backup (by filename), and use the ActionLinks to choose Download.
5. You can now choose a location on your computer to save the file.

If you need assisance creating a CD or DVD copy of the backup file, please contact your Ed Tech Center Designer.