Online Course Retention Policy

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Purpose of Policy

To define how long instructors can expect online course materials stored in centrally managed space to be retained.

Guiding Principles

To comply with any federal or state laws and University policies related to online course material retention.

To retain centrally stored online course materials for a period of time which instructors and students find adequate and useful.

To ensure that online storage space funded by Information Technology Services (ITS) is used efficiently and to minimize the financial impact of constantly increasing disk storage.

Scope of Policy

This policy covers online course materials on Blackboard application servers and associated disk space managed by Information Technology Services (ITS). This policy does not cover materials stored in a Blackboard organization/community site.

Statement of Policy

ITS will retain online course materials as described above for a minimum of two (2) years from the end of the course. Materials may be available after that two-year period, but instructors should not depend on such availability.

Once early registration is completed each semester, ITS will remove course sites that meet the two (2) year time frame. For example, in Spring 2005 when early registration for summer courses has been completed, ITS will begin removal of course sites from Fall 2002 and earlier.

Retaining copies of the syllabus, electronic gradebook and electronic student work is the sole responsibility of the instructor. Instructors should always make copies of the gradebook or download student work prior to removal of material from the course. Instructors who need help moving their materials to longer-term storage may contact Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment staff (DIIA) at blackboard@austin.utexas.edu. Faculty may request that their course materials be deleted earlier than this policy describes.