Moving closer to the end of the semester also means SUNY Oswego is moving closer to Blackboard being officially decommissioned. After Dec. 9, Blackboard logins will no longer be available to campus members.
Before Dec. 9, faculty should do the following:
- Export any courses you’d like to migrate to Brightspace for the Spring 2023 semester or submit the Spring Migration request form to have them done for you.
- Export any courses in Blackboard you would like to keep that won’t be migrated to Brightspace (instructions linked above).
- Download the grade center of courses for academic retention purposes. The file downloaded can be opened in a spreadsheet application.
- Download individual course evaluation results for surveys conducted in Blackboard.
Note that SUNY Oswego is working with an archiving service for courses currently in Blackboard. As the DLE team has more details, they will share them in future notices.
Closing out the semester
Brightspace support continues to be available as the university closes out the semester through the following:
- Penfield Library is hosting “Grading and Tea” sessions on Dec. 5, Dec. 7 and Dec. 9 for faculty to work on entering final grades in Brightspace. Faculty can attend in person in Room 215 of Penfield Library or virtually. Members of the DLE transition team will be available to answer questions. Exact times and a Zoom link are posted on the Brightspace Help & Support page.
- Instructions for entering grades into myOswego are being worked on and will be posted on the Brightspace Help & Support page when available.
- The “Quick Eval” tool has been added under the “Course Tools” menu for ease of use to attend to any outstanding items that need faculty attention.
- Zoom office hours continue to be offered through the fall and winter semesters.
Winter and spring semester migrations
All winter and spring semester courses that were taught fully online last winter and spring have been migrated to Brightspace. They are listed in the “Conversions Semester” of “My Courses.” This is a staging area where changes can be made before putting courses in production.
For courses being taught in other modalities, there are a few options for faculty to choose from:
- Use the Spring 2023 Course Migration Request form to request Blackboard course(s) be migrated to Brightspace.
- If faculty would like to migrate courses themselves, they can export the content from Blackboard (written exporting instructions, video exporting instructions) and import it into Brightspace (written importing instructions, video importing instructions). Note that student data does not import. There is also a 1GB limit on exporting content from Blackboard. If faculty find their course export is larger than this, they can either downsize the course or use the course migration request form above to have the course migrated automatically.
- Faculty can also opt to start fresh in Brightspace in which case they can get started any time.
Regardless of modality, faculty should do the following in regards to working on a course that has been migrated from Blackboard:
- Review the Prepping a Brightspace Course guide which assists with updating areas of a course after being migrated from Blackboard.
- Review the Brightspace Help at SUNY Oswego guide which assists in using many Brightspace features such as assessments and the gradebook.
- When a course is ready for production, copy it to either the “Winter 2022/2023” or "Spring 2023" semester as appropriate.
- Lastly, activate the course when it is ready for students to access it.
Any questions can be directed to the CTS Help Desk for the digital learning environment (DLE) team to address.
-- Submitted by the Digital Learning Environment transition team