Course rollover is the annual process whereby Blackboard courses from the current academic year are copied for use in the next academic year.
This post contains notice of this year’s rollover timetable and planned downtime, plus some preparatory information on how different types of courses are rolled forward, and what you will need to do for this process to go smoothly.
This year Course Rollover will take place on Saturday 8th July 2017
Saturday 15th July is being held in reserve in case of technical issues, or further work needing to be done.
Blackboard will be unavailable to users while course copying is taking place.
We anticipate that Blackboard will be unavailable during the morning on 8th July (and 15th July if required), but Blackboard should be considered “at risk” for the whole of the day.
If you have a RISIS course that is running again with the same module/programme code
The default position is that any RISIS module or programme
- which was used in Blackboard in the current academic year (i.e. in 2016-17)
- and is scheduled to run again in the new academic year (i.e. in 2017-18)
will be automatically copied forward as part of Course Rollover.
If your Module meets these criteria, then no action is required to ensure that the course is included in the rollover process.
An opt-out will be available for staff who do not want their entire course to be copied, and would prefer to upload or copy course materials to a new blank course shell.
If your Module did not run in 2016-17, you can request that the 2015-16 Blackboard course is copied forward for use next academic year.
There is no need to do anything at present – the request forms for staff to use are currently being updated. A further communication will be sent out, specifying what actions are required (if any), in early June.
If you have a new RISIS course or an existing course where the module/programme code is changing
If you are the Module Convenor for a brand new module, or if your module is getting a new course code in RISIS there are some checks you can carry out now to ensure that these changes will be properly reflected in Blackboard.
Please see the Course Rollover page for further details.
If you have a shared course or non-RISIS course
If your Blackboard course is not directly linked to a RISIS programme or module code (e.g. if you use a Shared Course or Non-RISIS course), you will need to submit a request to have a 2017-18 course created and to have course content copied forward.
There is no need to do anything at present – the request forms for staff to use are currently being updated. A further communication will be sent out, specifying what actions are required (if any), in early June.
More detail on all of this is available on the Course Rollover page of this Blog.