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Old materials to be removed from Blackboard & Zoom storage starting Sep. 30

Faculty & Staff, Technology
Sep 27, 2021

The Information Technology Services (ITS) department is taking proactive steps to ensure that College access to Blackboard and Zoom operates smoothly.

Starting on Thursday, Sep. 30, some old Blackboard courses and old Zoom recordings will be removed from Cincinnati State storage— so if you haven’t yet backed up materials you want to save, now is the time to take action. (Instructions for backing up materials are at the bottom of this article.)

Blackboard Course Retention

As part of contracted services with Blackboard, the College is allocated a specific amount of storage. The storage allocation has been increased twice, at a significant cost to the College.

Beginning Sep. 30, a sustainable and consistent process will be implemented to remove old Blackboard courses.

The College will retain 4 semesters (1 year + 1 semester) of active courses in Bb, and 7 semesters (2 years + 1 semester) of off-line courses. Off-line courses can be restored by ITS upon request.

Step 1 – On Sep. 30, 2021, all courses older than 7 semesters (2 years + 1 semester) will be removed from Bb.

  • 2015 Summer through 2019 Spring will be removed
  • 2019 Summer through 2021 Fall will remain active in Bb

Step 2 – On May 9, 2022, all courses older than 4 semesters (1 year + 1 semester) will be removed from Bb.

  • 2019 Summer through 2020 Fall will be removed
  • 2021 Spring through 2022 Spring will remain active in Bb

This storage/retention process will affect only instructional course shells (identified by titles that use this naming convention: 21_FA_ENG-101-001).

Templates, development shells, organizational Bb sites, workshops, and other online Bb resources will not be affected.

Links below give instructions for exporting and archiving Bb courses (saving your own copies of your courses).

Zoom Cloud Storage Retention

As part of contracted services with Zoom, the College is allocated a specific amount of cloud storage, recordings stored in Zoom cloud are not expected to remain there for extended periods.

A best practice is to move the Zoom recording after it is complete to a streaming service such as YouTube, OneDrive, or Microsoft Stream. OneDrive and Stream are part of a CState employee’s Office 365 account.

  • The College exceeded our Zoom storage limit in May 2021 but with the help of the faculty, usage was reduced from 110% of the storage allocation to 67%.

Beginining Sep. 30, a sustainable and consistent process will be implemented to reduce Zoom cloud storage.

  • Starting Sep. 30, Zoom cloud recordings more than 118 days old will be automatically deleted each day.
     
  • If you’re saving your Fall recordings in the Zoom cloud, they will remain until the end of the semester.
     
  • However, each day (starting Sep. 30), your Zoom recordings from previous semesters that are more than 118 days old will be automatically deleted. So on Sept. 30, you’ll start losing any saved Zoom cloud recordings from portions of Summer semester, and all previous semesters.
     
  • Deleted recordings will be kept in Zoom’s trash (visible to you) for 30 days after deletion. You can recover these recordings and move them to alternative storage.

Links below give instructions for moving recordings from Zoom’s cloud to other streaming services.

Instructions for saving your Blackboard & Zoom content

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