Forever Access vs. Archiving Courses: Practical Limitations and Policy Allan Gyorke Penn State University

In this session Review of Penn State’s predicament Forever Access versus Immediate Archiving Data gathered to build policy Final policy and implementation Questions for your institutions Goal: Trigger broader discussion

My Involvement Instructional Technology Manager, for the World Campus (Distance Education) System Administrator since 1993: – First Class, WebCT, ANGEL – Hybrid and Online Courses Course Archiving always an issue

What do I mean by “Course Archiving” Not just daily backups Course Archiving = Removing courses from the course management system and storing them off-line for a defined period Eventually, archives are deleted as well

Penn State and ANGEL Began in Fall 2001 with 100 courses Now all sections given ANGEL space Fall, 2004 data: – 5,871 course sections active – 63,233 unique students – 151,152 course enrollments – per semester

PSU Predicament – Mid-Spring 2004 Originally, “Courses always available” Scalability problems – server space – database size – cluttered course listing (delayed login and “What’s New” feature)

Course Archiving and Institutional Policy A CIC survey: few defined archiving plans If running a CMS, policy/plan needed Unique to the institution’s concerns

Some PSU Concerns Student Learning Academic Freedom User Support Research Academic Policies Legal Requirements Scalability/Stability Performance Privacy Security Intellectual Property Copyright Compliance

Forever Access vs. Immediate Archiving Student reference Student portfolio Copying course content Deferred grades Grade disputes Supports research File size Database size Overall speed improvement Uncluttered course lists Focus on current semester Copyrighted material

Other Problems with Forever Access Student “sharing” between semesters: – Quizzes – Old papers – Team assignments Content license: fair use, TEACH Act, etc… If Forever Access: – Plan for hardware growth – Discuss the legal/ethical issues Q: Can courses continue to be upgraded between CMS versions?

Other Problems with Immediate Archiving Disappearing courses – user shock Users download before archive Frequent restore requests Courses on non-standard schedules Q: Can archived courses be restored between CMS versions?

Is there a compromise? System/performance - immediate archiving Pedagogical concerns - forever access Q: How long do most students and faculty need access to courses? Q: How long should access be provided to adhere to university policies and legal concerns? A: Look at existing data

Access behavior in completed courses Server log data – From distance ed courses – Includes all users Consistent pattern Semester-based peaks: – Review of grades, course modification – Preparing repeat offerings

Hits on Spring 2003 Closed Courses (July 2003 through June 2004)

University Factors Faculty Senate Policies: – Six weeks for a deferred grade – No grade change after one year University Policies: – five weeks for grade mediation – some grade reports kept for three years Experience: – DE’s course archiving since 1999

Resulting Policy Courses will remain active on the server for one year after the course is completed Course will be archived and held in storage for another two years (three years total) After this time, the course archives can be deleted This allows faculty to access courses that only run once per year

Implementation First archive - Summer 2004 Faculty could request an exclusion Some requested forever access Users have adjusted to policy Most common request to restore – faculty or PhD research

Open Discussion Does your institution have a course archiving policy? How have you balanced academic needs versus system needs? What issues have you encountered? How do your decisions mesh with your institution’s policies? How does this affect non-academic work that uses the course management system? How are you storing and retrieving your data? If you retrieve a five year old course archive, will it be restorable on the current version of your CMS?