You can back up course data locally or using an Amazon S3 offsite storage. You can manually run backups or set them to run automatically.
Back up course data locally
Steps: Administration > Site administration > Blackboard Open LMS > DB Backups
DB Backup allows site administrators to download a copy of nightly backups of their database. The backup files can be saved and viewed locally.
- Log in to your site as the administrator.
- From Site Administration, select Blackboard Open LMS, and then DB Backups.
A list of available backups appears under Site Archives with File Name, File Date, and File Size for each backup.
These are the site's raw SQL backups, generated using the MYSQLDUMP tool. They are zip-compressed, plain-text SQL dump files.
Back up data offsite using Amazon S3
Steps: Administration > Site administration > Courses > Backups > Offsite Automated backups
Offsite automated course backups help reduce storage costs while also providing a long-term data retention strategy. These benefits are realized by shipping automatically created Moodle course backup files to the Amazon Simple Storage Service.
- From Administration, select Site Administration, Courses, and Backups.
- Select Offsite Automated backups.
- Type the basic Amazon S3 account information provided when you set up the Amazon S3 Services account:
- Type your Access key.
- Type your Secret key.
- Type the Bucket information.
- Complete the General offsite backup settings that Blackboard recommends:
- Check Enabled to activate the backups.
- Select Amazon S3 as the Offsite repository.
- If you want backups to be removed from the storage location after they are available on the Amazon servers, check Remove backups in specified location after shipment.
- If you want to have backups removed in the course backup file area of your site after they are available on the Amazon servers, check Remove backups in course backup file area after shipment.
- Select how long to keep the logs from the Remove logs after X months menu.
- Select Save and test configuration to ensure the setup was completed properly.
- After the onscreen notification that the configuration is valid, select Continue.
Course backup defaults
Steps: Administration > Site administration > Courses > Backups
You can set the default information for course backups. For example, you can determine the course data included in the backups, and how many days to save the backup files.
- From Site Administration select Courses and Backups.
- Select General backup defaults.
- Determine how long to Keep logs for before automatically deleting old backups.
The default value is 30 days. Logs that are older than this age are automatically deleted. Blackboard recommends a value no larger than 30 days.
- Complete the General backup settings for the type of course data to include in the backups. Blackboard recommends:
- Check Include users.
- Check Include role assignments.
- Check Include activities.
- Check Include blocks.
- Check Include filters.
- Check Include comments.
- Check Include badges.
- Check Include user completion information.
- Check Include question bank.
Disabling the Include question bank setting disables the backup of activities which use the question bank, such as the quiz.
- Select which General backup settings should be Locked.
A setting that is Locked cannot be changed by instructors at their course level.
- Select Save changes.
Import defaults
System administrators and teachers can import course data. Using the General import defaults, the system administrator can determine the maximum number of courses that can be imported at a time.
Steps: Administration > Site administration > Courses > Backups > General import defaults
- From Site administration select Courses and Backups.
- Select General import defaults.
- Determine the number of courses that can be initially imported in the Maximum number of courses listed for import box.
The Blackboard recommended default value is 10.
- Select Save changes.
Automated backup setup
You can manually run backups or set them to run automatically.