I. Purpose
The university is committed to managing Moodle courses in a way that gives faculty, staff, and students access to the courses while maintaining a Moodle course database that is manageable and efficient. This policy informs course owners that course-associated Moodle courses (hereinafter referred to as Moodle courses) will no longer be held in perpetuity by the university. It establishes a timeline for keeping and providing access to past Moodle courses and aims to give course owners the right to request access to their archived Moodle courses within a reasonable time.
II. Scope
The policy applies to all University faculty, staff, and students who use or participate in Moodle courses or university administrators who need access to student data in Moodle courses. It does not apply to Moodle sites created for department resources, committees or training purposes.
III. Definitions
- Archived Moodle courses mean Moodle courses created before the current term. Archived courses are kept as either an intact Moodle course or a compressed (zipped) course backup.
- A blended course is an in-person course that is supplemented with an online course.
- Course-associated Moodle course – A Moodle course created to accompany a course listed on UNC Asheville’s class schedule and associated with a Course Reference Number (CRN).
- Course owner means any university employee (faculty or staff) that has designed and developed a Moodle course and is the course teacher.
- Course teacher means any user enrolled as the teacher of a Moodle course.
- Fully online course is a course that is delivered completely online and does not meet face-to-face.
- Intact archived Moodle courses are courses five years old and younger, excluding the current term. The entire course content and student data are readily available in Moodle.
- Moodle is the university’s learning management system (LMS). Teachers use Moodle to create fully online and blended courses.
- Moodle Course Backup is a compressed file containing an entire Moodle course with student data. Course backups are stored outside of Moodle and can only be restored in a Moodle environment.
IV. Policy
A. Retention Schedules
- The university manages and maintains all current term Moodle courses. After grades are submitted at the end of the term, Moodle courses are archived.
- The university maintains archived Moodle courses for a period that is in keeping with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the UNC System Records Retention and Disposition Schedule, Standard 12: Student Academic and Curriculum and Instruction Records policy.
- Intact archived courses will remain available to the course owner in Moodle but hidden from students. The course owner can unhide an intact archived Moodle course for students or request that it remain visible.
B. Policy
The university will maintain archived Moodle courses for five years after the current term and will delete course archives older than five years.
C. Moodle Course Deletion Schedule
- The university will review Moodle courses after the academic year ends and courses older than five years will be deleted.
- The university will inform course owners prior to deleting any Moodle courses. Owners can opt out of course deletion if desired (see Moodle course backups below).
- Moodle course backups: The university will provide instruction and support to course owners who wish to download and maintain a copy of their Moodle courses older than five years. If requested, the university will store Moodle course backups older than five years in a secure location outside of Moodle.
D. Responsibilities
- The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) Instructional Technology division manages and maintains Moodle courses and course archives. They will communicate with course owners before deleting courses and support course owners who want to create backups of their Moodle courses.
- Once notified of pending course deletions, course owners are responsible for informing CTL’s Instructional Technology division promptly if they desire to keep a backup of their Moodle course(s) or need assistance with creating course backups.