Course Files and the Mystery of the Missing Space
It’s a classic tale of whodunit – you clear out all your superfluous files in your Blackboard paper and yet still you’re out of space. Let me introduce the culprit – Course Files.
Course Files is a handy feature of Blackboard unknown to most users. Course Files, put simply is an area where all the files from your Blackboard paper are stored. They are filed away nicely in folders that mimic your content areas (i.e Course Documents, Course Information). Once you add a new file to a course area it gets listed in your Course Files for you to reuse again and again in other areas of your paper. This reuse feature means you only have to upload a file once – saving your quota. The trap for young players comes when you decide to delete a few files. Dutifully you delete the files from your content areas to free up space but surprisingly nothing changes. The files are now missing and yet you still have no space to upload new files. Why? Course Files stores all your files like a big filing cabinet – deleting from a content area simply deletes the link to that file but the file itself remains in Course Files for you to reuse again in future. In order to free up space you need to remove the files from Course Files as well.
Removing files from Course Files isn’t tricky and it is a good idea to keep any eye on what’s in there – you don’t want to find you have ten copies of OtagoClocktower.jpg taking up valuable space. To view your Course Files area follow these steps:
- Log into Blackboard and open up your paper
- Click Files from the Course Management menu on the left hand side of the screen
- Then click your paper code
- This will open your Course Files area on the right hand side of the screen
To view how much space your files are currently taking up you can click the contextual drop down menu next to your Course Files title (will look like Files: COURSE_CODE – where COURSE_CODE is your paper code). Select 360° View and look for the Folder Size value.
The end of semester is the perfect time to review the contents of your paper and clean it up in preparation for a rollover – do you really need all those old files from 2005?
