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 Sacramento
City College

Instructional Development
Learning Resource Division

Bb - Export Course and Import Package

 

 

 

 

There are two options for creating a backup of your course - Archive and Export. Archive is used to keep content and student interactions, Export is used to keep the content of a course. If your course includes publisher content (a "cartridge") this special content is often copy protected and is not included in an Export file.

Exporting is the best way to back-up your course or a component of your course. You can export just the test assessment components or of the entire course.

Export Your Course

Here are the steps to export your course.

  1. go to http://blackboard.losrios.edu/  and login
  2. open the link for your current course
  3. go to CONTROL PANEL > EXPORT PACKAGE
  4. mark the areas of your course to be included in the backup file(do not check Annnouncements and Calendar...) and click Submit
  5. when the Reciept page appears, save the .zip file to your hard drive by clicking on the package file link:

Receipt
Click here to download the generated package file.
With some browsers, you may need to click the right mouse button and select "Save Link As" from the context menu.

This file will not open in any other application. Only Blackboard can make sense of this .zip file. Ask for a new empty Bb class and then import this file.

Import Package

If you request a blank shell for your course you can select the content items to import. Then import the .ZIP file to post the content into the new course shell. Here are the steps:

  1. go to http://blackboard.losrios.edu and login
  2. open the link for the new course
  3. CONTROL PANEL > IMPORT PACKAGE
  4. browse to the .zip file on your hard drive and select it
  5. click the Submit button
  6. You will probably get a Gateway Timeout Error because the server is not reporting back to your browser. WAIT and check your course in one hour (maybe two hours) before repeating this import process. (Otherwise you will get doubles of everything.)

This will take some time, depending on the current activity level of the server. Your computer must be left on for the upload to complete. When course archives are big (what is the cut off from small?) then I recommend importing the package/archive from campus where our connection is (often) faster than from home. 

Partial Archive

Go through the steps of creating an archive only select just the assessments or the discussion board checkbox. When you save the .ZIP file, be sure to modify the name to indicate what is included in the archive.

Net Citizenship

Be a good net citizen and do not import .ZIP files during high traffic on the server. Times to avoid are:

  • during the first two weeks of classes (orientations)
  • during finals
  • anytime you notice a slow response from the server

Sacramento City College
3835 Freeport Boulevard · Sacramento, California 95822
This page was last updated: Friday, December 17, 2004 at 2:06:21 PM