Information Technology Services

All Blackboard course shells have a maximum limit of 2 GB. Exports cannot be generated for course shells that exceed the 2 GB limit so, as a result, backups of these courses cannot be created. Some large files added to course shells that cause quota issues are lecture videos or other multimedia files uploaded by the faculty member or that students submit as assignments or as attachments on discussion board posts. To keep course quotas low, it is strongly recommended to store these types of files outside of Bb.  
 
With security being the concern that it is today, systems such as YuJa Enterprise Video Platform (video) and OneDrive (audio and documents) are recommended. These services are free to all SIUE faculty and students. 

Faculty and students are encouraged to use YuJa Enterprise Video Platform (https://siue.yuja.com) to store video files. Videos recorded using the Zoom cloud function are automatically transferred to and stored in YuJa Enterprise Video Platform. For videos that need to be placed in (faculty lectures) or uploaded to (student assignments) Bb, faculty and students will only need to get a link to use in Bb (https://kb.siue.edu/105681). 
 

 If faculty have existing video content to upload to YuJa Enterprise Video Platform, instructions for this process are available at: https://kb.siue.edu/93993. Follow this workflow (https://kb.siue.edu/117721) to login, record/upload video, edit, and link videos.

Although smaller files like syllabi and related documents don’t take up much course space, some larger document, presentation, and multimedia audio files can cause problems with course quotas. These types of files can be uploaded to OneDrive and a link can be used in Bb (https://kb.siue.edu/61722, https://kb.siue.edu/54503). 
 
Additional information: 
YuJa Enterprise Video Platform https://kb.siue.edu/search.php?q=yuja 
Microsoft OneDrive https://kb.siue.edu/search.php?q=onedrive 
ITS Knowledge Base: https://kb.siue.edu/ 
 
Contact the ITS Help Desk at (618) 650-5500 or help@siue.edu if you have questions about YuJa or OneDrive. Contact the Blackboard administration team at bbhelp@siue.edu for questions about the 5 + 1 retention practice.

Faculty are encouraged to export Bb course shells to keep a copy for future use. 
 
Creating an export ensures that the course’s structure and content will be available to be imported into a future course shell. Step-by-step instructions for exporting from and importing into Bb course shells is available at: https://kb.siue.edu/53717 
 
Course shells outside of the 5 + 1 frame will be removed from Bb, stored locally by ITS, and then permanently deleted after one year. The 5 + 1 retention practice will go into effect on June 30, 2021.  
 
Contact the ITS Help Desk at (618) 650-5500 or help@siue.edu if you have questions about the export/import processes or creating course backups. Contact the Blackboard administration team at bbhelp@siue.edu for questions about the 5 + 1 retention practice. 
 

Faculty are encouraged to export Bb course shells to keep a copy for future use (https://kb.siue.edu/53717). While faculty can store course backups locally, ITS recommends storing these export packages in one of several solutions to avoid storage issues and to maximize the availability of the course backup. 
 
One option is to store the backup file(s) in OneDrive, part of the Office365 suite available to SIUE faculty, staff, and students. Faculty can upload individual course backups (https://kb.siue.edu/70065) or departments or units can create shared folders to store copies of multiple courses so many people can access the backups (https://kb.siue.edu/55602). 

Other options for storing course backups so that multiple people have access to them is to utilize a Teams or SharePoint site. SharePoint is suggested if file storage is the main goal but a Teams site (which uses SharePoint for file storage) is recommended if communication between faculty about course shell backups is also needed. Request forms are available for Teams (https://kb.siue.edu/87072) and SharePoint (https://kb.siue.edu/70806) sites. Additional information about both systems is available from the ITS Knowledge Base at: https://kb.siue.edu/ 
 
In some instances, faculty might want to download only certain content from a Bb course instead of creating a backup of the course shell. Faculty needing to download only select content items can follow the instructions available at: https://kb.siue.edu/109507 
 
Contact the ITS Help Desk at (618) 650-5500 or help@siue.edu if you have questions about file storage using OneDrive, Teams, or SharePoint. Contact the Blackboard administration team at bbhelp@siue.edu for questions about the 5 + 1 retention practice. 
 
As previously announced, SIUE is adopting a Blackboard (Bb) retention practice. In the 5 + 1 model, course shells from the previous 5 semesters plus the current semester will be retained in Bb. Course shells outside of the 5 + 1 frame will be removed from Bb, stored locally by ITS, and then permanently deleted after one year. The 5 + 1 retention practice will go into effect on June 30, 2021.