Brightspace course retention

REVISION IN PROGRESS: This article contains useful information, but is being revised to reflect recent updates. Direct questions to TLT (tlt@winona.edu).

Following the end of an academic term, Brightspace courses are retained for several years for reference purposes. Instructors can access past Brightspace courses any time. Students can only access past courses if the course end date has not elapsed. The default Brightspace course end date is set for six weekdays following the official end of the term. Instructors can change the default course end date or disable it, leaving the course open continuously.

Brightspace course retention policies

The Minnesota State system office administers all D2L Brightspace instances for all Minnesota State schools and sets system-wide course retention policies. Here are the basics:

Referencing a past course

The system office considers a previous Brightspace course referenced if the instructor either accessed it, updated it, or copied elements into another Brightspace course.

Deactivation

Every February, the system office deactivates Brightspace courses that meet the criteria below. Once deactivated, the course is removed from the My Courses list and can no longer be accessed by former students or instructors. Enrollment and student performance data are retained. TLT staff can access deactivated courses and can reactivate them if needed. Contact TLT (tlt@winona.edu) for assistance. A course is deactivated when:

• It's more than five academic years old, and
• It hasn't been referenced for at least two years

Deletion

Every February, the system office deletes or purges Brightspace courses that meet the criteria below. Once deleted, the course cannot be recovered. All enrollment and student performance data are deleted. A course is deleted when:

• It's at least seven academic years old,
• It hasn't been referenced for at least four years

Removing a course from My Courses

There are several ways to remove a course from the My Courses widget. In each case, the course is still in Brightspace and can be accessed by the Brightspace administrators on campus but the course is no longer visible to the people that were enrolled in it. (Even if a course is no longer visible in your My Courses widget, it will be retained for a period of time in Brightspace. That includes student work and grades.)

Manually removing a course from My Courses widget

Here are a couple ways to manually remove the course from My Courses:

• Only active courses appear in the My Courses widget. As soon as the course is updated to no longer be active, the course will no longer appear in My Courses for all enrollees. The course is still in Brightspace, but it is no longer visible to the people enrolled in the course. If you, as the teacher, set a course to inactive and then later find you need access to the course again, contact TLT. If the course has not been removed from Brightspace by the system office (see below), the course can be restored to the active state and will again appear in your My Courses widget.
• Students can be removed from the course by unenrolling through the Registrar's office. For more information on unenrolling, contact the Warrior Hub.

External links

• D2L Brightspace Data Retention and Purging from Minnesota State