Leagan Gaeilge
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Do I need to bother saving copies of work my students have submitted on Blackboard?
Yes. The Blackboard server is routinely backed up, but this is only for system-wide disaster recovery, such as in the event of a major server crash. It is not possible to use this to restore individual modules or small pieces of content. Please, therefore, be careful not to delete any important files inadvertently!
It is good practice to keep offline copies of important assessment data and so on. You should also make archives of all your Blackboard modules at key points during the year, and prior to student cleardowns. The below instructions will clarify how to go about exporting and saving your important work.
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1. Using the Export tool to save course content only
Use this to preserve any courses which you have in Blackboard. You should do this to make regular backups of your current courses.
The Export tool saves your course content, by producing a compressed file that you can save to your local hard drive. You can use this exported file in a different Blackboard course, but using the Import Package feature. You can also share the compressed file with another instructor.
Note: It will NOT save any student data. You will need to also save your student data separately, by following the additional steps outlined below.
1. In the Control Panel, under Packages and Utilities, click Export/Archive Course.
2. Click on the Export Link
3. You will next be prompted to decide what you want to export. Select the check boxes next to the individual content areas and tools you want to export to your compressed file for later use.
3. Click the Submit button to complete the process.
When you click Submit, you see a notification that the process has been queued. This means the system processes the export in the background and notified you by email when the course has been exported. After you receive the email, you return to this page and select the .zip export package to download to your computer.
4. Right click on the link to the file and save it locally to a folder on your computer.
Note: To import this file at a later date, click Import Package/View Logs under Packages and Utilities in the Control Panel.
2. Downloading student grades
Use this to make an offline spreadsheet of students' grades.
1. In the Control Panel, under Grade Centre, click Full Grade Centre.
2. Under the Work Offline menu, click Download.
3. In the Download Grades page, choose whether you want to download the Full Grade Centre or just a Selected Column. Choose a file-type (tab or comma-delimited) then click Submit.
4. Click DOWNLOAD to download the file to your computer.
You must give the file a meaningful name that will allow you to identify in future the module/course and point in time that this download applied to. This will also prevent other future downloads from overwriting your file.
3. Downloading files from Blackboard Assignment tool
Use this if you have been collecting student file submissions in the Grade Center, via the Blackboard Assignment tool
Downloading Assignment Grades
1. In the Control Panel, under Grade Centre, click Assignments.
2. Follow steps 2 to 4 from the previous task.
Downloading Assignment Files
If you have been using the Blackboard Assignment tool to collect and manage student file submissions, you may download all of these together using the Assignment File Download tool.
1. This is found by clicking the context menu to the right of the assignment title, at the top of the relevant column in the Grade Center. Note that you may need to scroll to the right to see any assignments you have created.
2. In the context menu, click Assignment File Download.
3. On the next page, select the users whose files you wish to download using the checkboxes beside their names. To select all users, tick the box next to the Name column. Then click Submit.
You will then be directed to a page where you can download all the assignments selected. Click the Download assignments now link to save them to your computer.
You must give the file a meaningful name that will allow you to identify in future the module/course, assessment and point in time that this download applied to.
The download will be a compressed ZIP file containing all assignment files. You will need to extract or unzip this folder to access the files.
4. Saving Turnitin Assignments
If a Turnitin Assignment is deployed, you will note that in accessing this via the Gradebook, there will be no option to download the student submissions via the grade center route. This is because the Turnitin files are stored in the Turnitin.co.uk plagiariasm database and not in the Blackboard system itself.
You will notice the difference between a Turnitin Assignment and the Blackboard Assignment gradebook columns below:
To access and download Turnitin assignments, you must instead to the Control Panel of your course, and find Turnitin Assignments under the Course Tools.
You can then click to View any Turnitin Assignments, you have previously created. This will bring you the a page, where you can select all the submitted assignments, and select to download these.
You will be asked to verify if you want to continue:
Next, you will have a choice whether to download the files in the original format submitted by students, or to download them in *.pdf format:
Make you preferred selection, and pause a few moments. You will be notified first the Turnitin is preparing the files for download.
Next, you will see a notification to tell you that the download is beginning. If you wish, click to initiate the download directly, or wait for the download to begin.
The Turnitin assignment files will then be downloaded to your computer in a *.zip file format.
You will need to locate the files on your computer when the download is complete to unzip the folder and access the files.
Note: If your class size is large, and exceeds 300 student submissions, this may require a long wait for your files to compress and save down from the Turnitin.co.uk site.
5. Collecting discussion forum postings
Use this if you have been using discussion forums for assessment, or have other valuable discussion activity that you wish to keep
Discussion Forum postings cannot be archived offline (except when you archive your entire course), but you CAN use the ' Collect' tool to assemble all postings on one page, and then just print and/or save this page.
Go into your discussion forum, click the '
Show Options' tab on the right hand side.
Click 'Select All', then ' Collect'.
This assembles all the message contents on one page, which you may then print / save as a web page.
Note: however that this will NOT preserve any file attachments posted with messages, these would still have to download individually, and named in such a way that you can identify what they are. Be aware also of data protection rules however when deciding what will happen to these later!
6. Saving Wiki or Blogs
If you have used any collaborative wiki or blog features on your Blackboard course, you may also wish to retain these. To do so, you have the option to export these locally to a folder on your computer.
To start exporting, go to the wiki or the blog itself within your Blackboard site and look to the grey menu on the right of the tool. You will see an icon " Export Site".
When you select this, you will have the ability to download the full blog or wiki to your own computer.
7. Saving Surveys
It is also possible to individually export any surveys you have used to save to your computer, in case you want to use these again in future years. Again, in the Control Panel, select the Survey Manager option.
From this location you can choose to Export a zip file of your survey, that can later be imported into another course on the system.
This page was last updated Tuesday, April 03, 2012