Blackboard Retirement Resources (Instructor)

Many courses were automatically migrated to Canvas and an archive of Blackboard courses will be available for two years. Check your Courses page in Canvas to see what was migrated. See more information about migrations including a final opportunity to move Bb courses or organizations to Canvas. Note that when a course/org is migrated to Canvas it ONLY includes the instructor’s course content; it DOES NOT include any student information (student enrollments, grades, submissions, discussion posts, etc.). Students will not have any access to their prior Blackboard courses in Canvas. Information has been posted for students.

In addition to course migration to Canvas and the Blackboard Archives, you can: 

• Download your Grade Center as a spreadsheet
• Download all/parts of your course as an export file
• Download all instructor uploaded files (pdf, docx, etc.)
• Download submissions from one assignment or one test at a time

Use ITS Guidance on storing files with FEPRA data.

Instructors may also want to take screenshots of their course – homepage, modules, etc. This may assist with record keeping for future course design reviews and evaluations.

ITS has contracted with a vendor to store all Blackboard semester/term courses until December 31, 2027. This includes all semester courses which used Blackboard from Spring 2021 – Spring 2025. The archive will include all course content hosted in Blackboard INCLUDING all student information (grades, submissions, tests results, etc.).  

The archive will only include semester/term courses.

The archive is not in the Blackboard interface, but is an extraction of the course. Content from a Blackboard archived course can be accessed or downloaded by ITS upon request. For example, an instructor may need to access a student’s grades and submissions from a course (responding to a grade appeal, or writing a recommendation letter, etc.). 

Students cannot submit requests to retrieve content. If a request is received from a student, they will be informed that only instructors can submit archive requests. 

What is in the archive? 

• All instructor content in Blackboard: files, modules, text, tests, discussions, etc. 
• All student content in Blackboard: grades, test and assignment submissions, discussions, journals, etc. 

What is not in the archive? 

All external content and third-party tools linked from a Blackboard course are not in the Blackboard Archives. They may exist on the other platform (like a publisher website) if the tool provides a means to access the content through a separate login. Files in Blackboard outside of an archived course (My Content, Institution, etc.) are not included in the archive. Some items that will not be in the archive (this is not a complete list): 

• SafeAssign reports 
• Collaborate recordings 
• Detailed Attendance reports (Quickly Attendance)
• WordPress CourseBlogs
• Content on linked sites (YouTube, links to files on other sites like OneDrive) 
• Content on integrated tools such as publisher websites, etc. 
• Blackboard Portfolios (even if created for a course) 
• Student submissions using third party tools (publisher sites, Kaltura, etc.) 

A course in the archives can also be migrated to Canvas upon request. As with all course migrations from Blackboard to Canvas, this would include instructor content but no student work.

Students will not have any access to their prior Blackboard courses in Canvas. Instructors of spring 2025 courses using Blackboard have a few options if you allow a student to have an incomplete. Blackboard will be available until July 15, 2025, so the easiest option is to give students until this date to complete the course.  

If a student needs more time, the instructor must work with the student outside of Blackboard (send the student documents/collect papers via email).  

Instructors can also add the student to a Canvas course with the same content. All spring 2025 courses using Blackboard will be migrated to Canvas – however this would not would not include any of the student’s work completed in Blackboard. Students can be added to a migrated spring 2025 course in the “Student-Incomplete” course role.

It is recommended that the instructor download all of the student’s work and grades from Blackboard before July 15. 

Information about the University’s grading policies can be accessed here.

Students will not have any access to their prior Blackboard courses in Canvas after July 15, 2025. If a grade appeal continues or is filed after Blackboard access ends and you did not download records, you can request a specific student’s records from the Blackboard Archive. The Blackboard Archive will include student submitted work, grades, and instructor feedback (text and annotations). It will not include SafeAssign reports.

Information about the University’s grading policies can be accessed here.

Collaborate Ultra (known as Blackboard or Class Collaborate) will also end on July 15, 2025. All recordings will stop working at this time. Information about copying Collaborate recordings to Kaltura is coming soon.

You will no longer have access to SafeAssign originality reports. Instructors should download any reports they may need in the future. These reports will not be part of any archives.

All files stored in Blackboard, both in non-term courses (sandboxes, etc.) and organizations, and in other locations such as My Content and Institution Content will stop working after July 15, 2025. Except for files in semester courses, no other files and data will not be stored in the Blackboard Archive. Links to all files (both public and log-in required links will stop working, even if the Blackboard course is in the archives).

You must download any Blackboard content before this date.

Note: Blackboard Organization owners with files shared publicly for websites, including Site Masonry, have been contacted with options to move their content. Contact the Office of University Branding with any questions about files for websites.