Exporting course content from Blackboard 6 to Blackboard 8

Eventually all of your courses from Spring 08, Summer 08 and Fall 08 will be loaded into Blackboard 8, where you will be able to use the course copy tool to copy content from one semester to the next. Spring 08 courses will be loaded by mid-December. Fall 08 courses are slated to be loaded by January 14.

Because the latter date is so close to the beginning of the Spring 09 semester, we recommend that faculty members who plan to use materials from their Fall 08 courses durig Spring 2009 use the Export/Import tool to export those materials from Blackboard 6 and import them into Blackboard 8. The following tutorial will walk you through this process.

Keep in mind that the export/import feature does not copy any student-specific data, such as assignments or grades. To store a course with this information intact, use Blackboard's Export tool instead.

  • Navigate to Bb6 Control Panel

    Log into Blackboard 6 and select the class class from which you would like to export content. Once inside the class, click on Control Panel.

  • Click Export Course

    Under Course Options, click Export Course.

  • Select content to export

    Choose the content that you'd like to export. In my case, I've chosen everything under the Content heading, as well as the Discussion Board. Keep in mind that, while you can select to export whatever you'd like, Blackboard 6 and Blackboard 8 do not share all of their Building Blocks. As a result you won't be able to import any content into Blackboard 8 for which the corresponding Building Block doesn't exist. This includes Turnitin assignments (replaced by SafeAssign in Bb8) and iTunesU links.

    Click Submit after you've made your selection.

  • Save ZIP file

    After a moment of processing your request, Blackboard will show you a screen with the word Receipt. Click your right mouse button on the link provided and choose "Save As..." (your browser may say "Save Target As" or "Save Link As").

    You will be asked to save the file to your computer. Make sure you take note of where you save the file - when in doubt, the Desktop is a convenient place.

  • Navigate to Bb8 Control Panel

    Now it's time to import your content into Blackboard 8. Once logged into Bb8, navigate to the class into which you'd like to import. Click on Control Panel.

  • Click Import Package

    Under Course Options, click Import Package.

  • Select content to import

    Under Select a Package, use the Browse... button to locate the file that was created in the export from Bb6. In my case, it's located on the Desktop.

    Under Select Course Materials, select the same items that you selected when exporting from Bb6. If you're unsure of whether you ought to check a particular box, simply check it - Blackboard will figure out on its own what you want to import.

  • Do this first

    You should receive a message saying that your import has been "successfully queued". Check your course in a few minutes: your content will have been imported. When Blackboard finds a folder in the Bb8 course whose name matches the imported folder's name (if you are importing a folder called "Course Documents", for example), you will find your imported data in that folder. Otherwise Blackboard creates the course area for you, adding it to the end of the course menu. For information on creating, deleting, and sorting items in your course menu, see the Course Menu tutorial.

    You will also receive an email at your Lotus Notes account informing you that the import has completed successfully. In that email there may also be some error messages. This usually happens because you have attempted to import content that was created in a Building Block unsupported by Blackboard 8. This content will have to be recreated manually.