New Process for VIULearn Course Cleanup
Status: Currently we have over 40,000 courses dating back to Intersession 2012 when we began using D2L’s Brightspace software (branded VIULearn). Many of these courses were never used or are not used anymore. The accumulation of old courses can make managing VIULearn challenging and creates a messy view for faculty.
Rationale: It is not good practice to have a backlog of courses sitting on servers. VIU’s retention policy of student data is only for one year after the end of a course. Storage of course materials and student data needs to be managed systematically to ensure security of data. Many institutions have online course retention processes to ensure good management practices and backing up procedures are in place.
What is Happening? During the first week of July 2018, we are going to permanently delete courses from Intersession 2012 up to and including Intersession, May, and June 2015. We will be keeping all courses from Fall 2015 to present.
Specifics of this New Process? See: More information
Making Copies (Exports) of Courses: If you have any courses from 2012 to 2015 you wish to keep, you need to make an offline copy of the course. The ability to export course content and student data has always been possible in VIULearn. It is good practice to export a copy of your course from time to time over the semester (and save your course export in a few spots).
Importing Course Content: A exported course is easily imported back into VIULearn in the future if you need to access it, restore some content, or re-use the whole course. See: Save Course Files and Activities Offline
Making Copies of Student Work: Faculty can also make offline copies of student data such as assignments, gradebook items, discussions. See: Save Student Data Offline
It is also possible for students to backup and save work they want to keep for their records. See: Save Your Work Offline and Take It With You After Graduation
Questions? Email us at learnsupport@viu.ca
See InVIU for information sessions and hands-on workshop sessions to export your courses, or follow our steps in the links above to export your 2012-2015 courses!