How to access archived Blackboard courses without having access to Blackboard

[JacobWilliams33]

Hello I am the new LMS Admin at my university and we are currently transitioning from Blackboard to Canvas. One issue I've been tasked to solve is finding a way to preserve student data in the case of a grade dispute.

We've been able to pull extract the archived courses from Blackboard, but they are not in a format that allows us to review them easily. I've heard of a software called "BFree" but it is apparently no longer available for download. 

Please let me know if you know of any solutions!

Thanks!

[JasonSimmons · Accepted solution]

Hello @JacobWilliams33 ,

K16 Solutions offers a legacy LMS archiving solution and an automated LMS migration solution and, is a close partner with Instructure. K16 has helped hundreds of institutions either migrate, archive, or both in most cases. 

With Scaffold Archiving, you can archive your legacy LMS data on a platform that completely integrates with Canvas, which means your archives can easily sync to your Canvas LMS and back to the archives. And, yes, it solves the problems you are addressing about preserving data in case of grade disputes.

Most institutions usually choose this option because it's more cost-effective than keeping a read-only version of Blackboard running, and of course the ease of access to the data. Below are a few case studies of institutions that have archived their legacy LMS data from Blackboard or other legacy LMS platforms. I'm happy to connect you with my colleague, who can demo this solution for you or connect you with a customer. Thanks.

• Prince George's Community College (Migration & Archiving from Blackboard to Canvas)
• Saint Mary's University of Minnesota (Migration & Archiving from Blackboard to Canvas)
• University of Memphis (Migration & Archiving from Brightspace to Canvas)

Best,
Jason Simmons, SVP, K16 Solutions