Blackboard Policies

Approved by the Faculty Information Technology Committee December, 2009

The Faculty IT Committee will review Blackboard Policies annually.

Course Definition

Courses in Blackboard are defined in the system based upon the Registrar's ID for the course. For example: BIOL22001SPRING 2010

BIOL | 220 | 01 | SPRING 2010

Dept | Course Level | Section | Term and Year

The term and year of the Registrar's Course ID defines the age of content within the Blackboard system.

Courses not on Registrar's list will follow a unique convention.

Course States

Courses in Blackboard exist in one of four states within the system:

• Active: Courses which are currently being taught in the present academic term and are available to faculty and students. State exists for courses in which the current academic term is identified in the Registrar's ID.
• Inactive: Courses which are available in the Blackboard system to faculty but are not available to students. State exists for courses for 4 years from the term identified in the Registrar's ID. For example: a course with an ID number of BIOL22001S03 will be available in Blackboard until S07.
• Archived: Courses that have been archived or backed up by IT Services and removed from availability to faculty but can be reinstated upon request. State exists for courses for 5-6 years from the term identified in the Registrar's ID. For example: a course with an ID number of BIOL22001S03 will archived in S07 and can be reinstated in Blackboard until the end of S09.
• Deleted: Courses that have previously existed within the system but have been permanently removed from the system and IT Services no longer maintains an archived copy for restoration. State exists for courses after 7 years from the term identified in the Registrar's ID. For example: a course with an ID number of BIOL22001S03 will be permanently deleted from the system in F10 and no archived copies of the course will be available from IT Services.

Access

Policy	Responsibility	Schedule
Blackboard accounts are available to HWS community members: currently employed faculty and staff, enrolled students, emeritus faculty, board members.	IT Services Staff	As requested
Access to Blackboard by non-HWS members will be granted via a guest account with limited user rights. Requests must be by an HWS community member. Once an account has been created, faculty may grant course site-level to their courses.	IT Services Staff	As requested
Access to Blackboard using generic or group accounts will not be permitted.	IT Services Staff	As requested
All requests for access to Blackboard content will be routed to the faculty member who created the content. This includes requests related to outside and departmental reviews. In instances of separation from the institution, IT Services can advise faculty prior to their departure on archiving and preserving of course materials to make them accessible independent of the HWS Blackboard system.	Faculty	As requested

Availability

Policy	Responsibility	Schedule
Per the Registrar's schedule, IT Services will create courses one week after registration closes for the following semster. IT Services will send a communication to all faculty when this is complete.	IT Services Staff	Each semester
At the start of the semester faculty will be responsible for making the course content available to students enrolled in their courses.	Faculty	Each semester
Course site enrollment, including both adds and drops, will be automated from the Peoplesoft system at the close of registration until the close of the add/drop period. Thereafter, when automated processes cease, faculty may manually add/drop students from their course sites.	Faculty	Each semester
IT Services will make courses unavailable one week after the last final exam. Students will not have access to course content at that time.	IT Services staff	One week after the last final exam
On the last day of classes, IT Services will e-mail faculty who have active Blackboard accounts to remind them that courses will be made unavailable to students after final exams. The communication will include a reminder that the course owner (faculty) would need to manually make the course available in the case of any students who have received an Incomplete and would need access to that course content.	IT Services staff	Last day of classes
Faculty who have incompletes are responsible for making the course available to the students with incompletes and also for setting it back to unavailable.	Faculty	One week after the last final exam
Upon notification from Human Resources or the Provost office, new faculty members' Blackboard accounts will be created.	IT Services staff	As requested
Upon notification from the Registrar, new student members' Blackboard accounts will be created.	IT Services staff	As requested
Upon notification from Human Resources or the Provost, IT Services will disable accounts of faculty members who leave HWS based upon a date set by Human Resources or the Provost office. These accounts will then be deleted after 60 days, or per the current HWS account policy guidelines.	IT Services staff	As requested
Upon notification from the Registrar or at the end of a student's HWS career, IT Services will disable accounts of student members who leave HWS based upon a date set by the Registrar. These accounts will then be deleted after 60 days, or per the current HWS account policy guidelines. As a result, all student-related data, including but not limited to grades, discussion board contributions, assignment submissions, etc., will not be immediately available. Faculty will need to submit a request to IT Services to restore these materials.	IT Services staff	As requested

Communities

Policy	Responsibility	Schedule
Communities that have activity in the last three years will remain active to enrolled participants. All communities that have not had activity for 3+ years will be deleted from Blackboard after notification to the community leader. The community leader can request assistance from IT Services to archive community content, if desired. However, IT Services will not automatically archive this content.	IT Services staff	Each semester

Content

Policy	Responsibility	Schedule
Courses will remain accessible to faculty in Blackboard for four years.	IT Services staff	4 years from course ID date
Courses are automatically archived by IT Services and removed from Blackboard after the 4th year. Archived courses are able to be restored to Blackboard by request. However, there is no guarantee of how functional archival restores will be if the version of Blackboard changes.	IT Services staff	5-6 years from course ID date
Archived courses will be deleted completely in year 7.	IT Services staff	7 years from course ID date
Individual faculty members should make an offline electronic copy of the individual course content at the conclusion of the class for their own records to enable access to course content which may be necessary for writing recommendations, creating other courses, etc.	Faculty	Each semester
Faculty using the GradeCenter functionality of Blackboard are advised to perform an export of the GradeCenter data to an Excel spreadsheet immediately upon the conclusion of the semester. Blackboard GradeCenter is not the official record for student grades. Faculty must still enter final grades in the PeopleSoft system.	Faculty	Each semester
Storage space allocated to individual courses is not restricted at this time but this could change if Blackboard usage outstrips the current disk space of the system. Should limits need to be established, IT Services would discuss and set these limits in conjunction with the Faculty IT Committee.	IT Services staff	Each semester
All HWS Blackboard users will be responsible for adherence to copyright laws when using the system.	Faculty, staff, students	Each semester

Upgrades

Policy	Responsibility	Schedule
Major upgrades will be applied during breaks in the academic year.	IT Services staff	Each semester
Minor upgrades related to break-fix will be applied as required during the academic term.	IT Services staff	As needed
Occasionally, upgrades and patches which may require brief outages will be applied to the Blackboard system. IT Services will communicate these outages in advance.	IT Services staff	As needed
Blackboard-supported Building Blocks can be installed after approval by the Faculty IT Committee.	IT Services staff, Faculty IT Committee	Each semester
Unsupported Building Blocks will not be installed.	IT Services staff, Faculty IT Committee	Each semester
Third party supported Building Blocks may be installed after further research and certification by IT Services and with approval by the Faculty IT Committee.	IT Services staff, Faculty IT Committee	Each semester
The Faculty IT Committee will review requests for new Building Blocks as part of the annual budget proposal process. Additionally, IT Services would propose Building Blocks that should be removed from the system, as necessary, to the Faculty IT Committee for approval. Based upon the Committee review, the Building Blocks will then be added or removed at the next term break in the academic year per maintenance windows already established.	IT Services staff, Faculty IT Committee	Each semester