Body
Overview
In November 2021, a formal recommendation by the Academic and Student Affairs (ASA) Technology Council was made to, and approved by, the Senior Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs regarding D2L Brightspace Data Retention and Purging. Annually, the Minnesota State Learning Technologies team will remove user accounts and courses that have exceeded the data retention schedule. Prior to removal, communication about upcoming purge activities will be sent to campus staff.
Retention Schedule
The data removal and purge process will be conducted annually starting in March. Courses older than 6 calendar years (with no recent activity) will be deactivated (hidden). Deactivated courses or user accounts older than 8 calendar years (with no recent activity) will be purged.
The table below shows the retention rules for items affected.
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Area
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Retention Schedule
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Purge Process and Conditions
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Course Visibility
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Retain visibility of courses for five full academic years.
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- Annually in March, deactivate courses older than five full academic years (6 calendar years).
- Exceptions: Courses with activity in the last two years. “Activity” includes course access or the use of a course as a source for copying materials.
- Example: In March of 2022, inactivate courses from AY 2016 and earlier.
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Courses
(enrollments, faculty/student course materials, learning activities, gradebook, assessments, feedback)
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Retain seven full academic years.
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- Annually in March, purge courses older than seven academic years (8 calendar years).
- Applies to courses in “archive” semesters as well as normal year-term semesters.
- Exceptions: Courses with activity in the last four years. “Activity” includes course access or the use of a course as a source for copying materials.
- Example: In March of 2022, purge courses from AY 2014 and earlier that have had no activity during AY 2016 or more recently.
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Brightspace Datasets
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Retain seven full academic years.
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D2L’s Brightspace Datasets service will reflect the retention schedule above for course shells, course materials, etc.
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User Accounts
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Retain eight full years.
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- Annually in March, purge accounts older than 8 calendar years
- Applies to StarID and non-StarID accounts
- Exceptions: Accounts with activity in the last 4 years.
“Activity” includes new enrollments or logins.
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Important Changes
The data retention schedule above has a few notable changes, compared with the previous retention schedule.
- ALL courses in Brightspace will be impacted. Previously, this was limited to ISRS-affiliated courses.
- ALL user accounts in Brightspace will be impacted. Previously, user accounts were not purged.
- Course enrollments will not be removed from courses. Previously, these were removed after 2 years and 1 term.
The previous retention process was last run on June 2021, against Spring 2019 (20195) courses. The new retention process began in 2022, with full implementation in 2023, and is applicable to ALL courses.
Definitions
- Purge – The item is permanently erased. It cannot be recovered.
- Visibility – The ability to see or interact with an item in Brightspace.
Q&A
Q: Can an institution setup a different retention schedule?
A: No. All institutions will use the same retention schedule outlined above.
Q: How long will courses be visible to faculty and students in Brightspace?
A: Courses will be visible for a minimum of 5 academic years.
Q: Can we continue to move courses or departments into non-ISRS semesters for archival purposes?
A: All courses will be subject to purging regardless of semester; the parent semester does not influence the retention schedule.
Q: Will previous students retain access to Brightspace courses for 5 years?
A: Current student permissions don’t allow students access to a course once the course end date has passed.
Q: Can I save a course from being purged?
A: Yes, do one of the following actions: (1) access the course as long as you are listed in the Classlist, or (2) copy the course to another course using Copy Components.
Example Scenarios
Basic example, no access beyond 1 year after course ends
Access (course copy) beyond 3 years after course ends
Course reactivated after initial visibility removal
