Various factors determine the length of time that courses in Blackboard can be accessed. Some instructors close a course at the end of the semester. While the students in that course can still log into Blackboard, the course will no longer be available to them. The course name will be followed by the comment “(not currently available)“.

When a new version of Blackboard is installed, it starts with a clean slate. Courses and students from the old version of Blackboard are not transferred to the new installation. The old version of Blackboard will be available for at least a year so that faculty can use previous course materials to develop new courses. During that time, students are able to log into the old version of Blackboard and access past courses, if the instructor has made them available.

Blackboard is not a long-term file storage service. Students should download documents that they wish to keep before the course ends. Faculty should store original course materials in their home folder and download student documents from Blackboard that are to be kept for a longer period of time. If it is acceptable for course documents to be publicly accessible, faculty can store the documents on their WordPress site and link to the documents from the Blackboard course, allowing the documents to be accessed for a longer time and by more people than current students.