Dear Colleagues,
bCourses is UC Berkeley’s official campus Learning Management System (LMS), using the Canvas platform. To enhance the management of bCourses and comply with the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) records management policies, the university has established a bCourses Course Retention Policy that applies to all users of bCourses, including instructors, students, and staff.
Academic Course Retention
bCourses sites for academic courses are retained for seven years after the end of the Academic Year (AY) in which the course was offered. Course sites will be removed from bCourses annually every June (for example, a course taught in Fall 2020, Academic Year 2020–21, will be removed in June 2028).
The content removed includes instructor-developed content (e.g., pages, modules, files), student submissions (e.g., to assignments, quizzes), and student interactions (e.g., discussions, group work, collaborations). Once a course has been removed through this policy, the course and associated content will not be recoverable for instructional purposes.
Academic Course Removal Timeline
- Temporary Archival of Academic Courses (AY2013–14 through AY2019–20): To allow for sufficient notification, bCourses sites for academic courses created in AY2013–14 through AY2019–20 will be archived starting in June 2027, and removed from bCourses in June 2028. Temporarily archived courses will be put in a read-only state.
- Official Courses AY2020–21 and Beyond: Starting in June 2028 with courses from the Academic Year 2020–21, academic courses created more than seven years ago will be removed from bCourses annually every June.
- Project Sites and Sandboxes: Manually-created bCourses sites that are not linked to a specific term/course, often referred to as Project Sites or Sandboxes, are subject to removal from the system if they do not have user activity for three years. If a Project Site or Sandbox course has activity, it will continue to be available without any change of access. Inactive Project Sites will be removed annually every June, starting in June 2028.
- Self-Service Course Access Restriction: If you’d like to restrict student access to your bCourses sites before the designated retention policy removal timeline, learn how to restrict access to your course site or materials.
Communications
Instructors shall be notified multiple times via email starting two years in advance of any course or Project Site removal from bCourses. The communication will include links to instructions on how to preserve course materials and data.
Options for Course Preservation
While the bCourses retention policy ensures the campus remains compliant with UC systemwide records management standards, there are several pathways for instructors to preserve their work and student records, as well as to encourage their students to save their own course or project work. Review the bCourses Course Retention Policy for details.
If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to bcourseshelp@berkeley.edu.
Sincerely,
Oliver M. O’Reilly
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education
Anne Marie Richard
Assistant Vice Provost and Chief Academic Technology Officer