COLTT Policies


Below are some of our departmental policies, please click on any policy to expand it and read the full details. If you have any questions, feel free to contact our COLTT Help Desk at: 956-882-6792 (Brownsville) / 956-665-5327 (Edinburg) or submit a case at UTRGV.edu/coltthelp

This policy is to explain the process and requirements for faculty needing assistance with exams using Respondus test generator. COLTT can assist first time Respondus users on formatting exams. To speed up the process we recommend faculty to format all Respondus exams to meet your exam deadline.

a. COLTT Requirements for exam request:  
  1. Request must be submitted at least 15 business days in advance.
  2. For a faster turnaround, properly formatted exams will be processed within 3 business days.
  3. Unformatted exams require at least 15 business days depending on the quantity of exams and requests.
  4. All requests are on a first come first serve basis.
  5. Request must be submitted through our support portal at UTRGV.edu/coltthelp

a. Request must include the following information: 

  1. Exam Name
  2. Course Information (Ex. SPAN-1301-Fall2019)
  3. Formatted Test Word Document or Text Files

For information on formatting the exam please visit the article on Creating and Managing Exams in Respondus.

b. Faculty Responsibilities:  

  1. COLTT staff will deploy exam and faculty will adjust exam settings for all requests.

Note: Faculty will adjust the test options/settings for all requests:  

  1. Test availability
  2. Test exceptions
  3. Due date
  4. Assessment options
  5. Results and feedback
  6. Test presentation

For pre-recorded trainings, please visit Respondus Test Generator 4.0 and Test Generator for MAC.

The purpose of this policy is to explain the requirements of auditing a course. UTRGV does offer the option to audit a course but there are conditions that need to be met for a student to be able to audit the course. For a student to be able to audit the course, then the course must not be taught fully online. If your course is a hybrid or traditional (in-person or with in-person components) then auditing would be an option.

If the above condition is met, then the following needs to occur:

1. The student must have a record at UTRGV (ID). If student has no record then student will need to contact Admissions Office at admissions@utrgv.edu to discuss the interest in auditing a course.

2. Obtaining a “Class Audit” Form from the Student Services Center,

3. Having it approved by the instructor of the class to be audited,

4. Paying the required fee ($50) at the Office of Payments and Collections on or by the Census Day, and

5. Using the receipt as an admission card to the class.  

For more information on auditing a course email U Central at UCentral@utrgv.edu.  

Students Responsibility: Students will be responsible in submitting a request to our office. Request must be submitted through our support portal at UTRGV.edu/coltthelp. Student will provide the following information to process the request.

  1. Request must include the following information:
  2. Student Information
  3. Course Information (Ex. SPAN-1301-Fall2019)
  4. Auditing request form signed by the instructor
  5. Receipt paid auditing fee
COLTT Requirements: To add student as an Auditor to a course student must provide the following information to our department:
  1. Auditing request form signed by the instructor
  2. Receipt paid auditing fee

An incomplete “I” grade can be assigned at the discretion of your instructor. Once an instructor has gone through the official process of assigning an incomplete, if an instructor needs to request a Blackboard online course to be open for a student. The instructor must follow the steps below.

Note: For more information on Incomplete Grades please visit the Grade Policies and Procedures.

Instructor Responsibility:

Instructor will be responsible in submitting a request to our office. Request must be submitted through our support portal at UTRGV.edu/coltthelp.  Instructor will provide the following information to process the request.

  1. Request must include the following information:
  2. Student Email
  3. Course Information (Ex. SPAN-1301-Fall2019)
  4. Availability of extension in the course

COLTT Responsibility:

COLTT Office will process the request, based on the information provided by the instructor. Once the request has been completed, the case will be closed.

If a student is considering a grade challenge the student must first discuss the grade with the instructor before the end of the semester.  Should an agreement not be made aware with the instructor and student, students can refer to the Academic Appeals Process.

Once the academic appeals process has been initiated, for any online course grade challenges, the office of Student Rights and Responsibilities will submit a request through our support portal at UTRGV.edu/coltthelp requesting any necessary information pertaining to the students grade challenge. All requested information will ONLY be provided to the office of Student Right and Responsibilities.

Faculty that are requesting access to content to a course that was taught by another instructor must request approval from the instructor of record of the course. If the instructor is no longer working for the university, then approval is needed by the the Department Chair. Once the approval has been received, then our office will process the request.

For these types of requests please follow the steps below:

Faculty Responsibility

  1. Faculty must submit a request through our support portal at UTRGV.edu/coltthelp
  2. Need to include the course information that you would like to copy content from and the course you would like to copy the content into. Ex.(SPAN-1301-Fall2019).
  3. If the instructor of record is no longer available to grant approval. Then we would need approval from Department Chair allowing us to copy the content into your course.
  4. Once the approval has been received then our office will be able to process the request.
The purpose of this policy is to provide faculty with information on our Blackboard course size limit. In effort to properly manage our Blackboard course storage and ensure adequate system performance, we encourage faculty to help us with this policy.
 
Blackboard courses are restricted to the following course size quotas:
  • Accelerated courses: 1 GB
  • Traditional courses: 2 GB
If instructors have gone over their course quota, instructors will receive an error message when attempting to upload content. Faculty will not be able to upload additional content until they have reviewed and removed unnecessary content from their course. You can find instructions for checking the current size of any course and for reducing the course size below.

If you have any questions about your course size, please contact the COLTT Help Desk at 956-665-5327 or 956-882-6792.

This policy has established guidelines on how long courses will be retained in our Blackboard Learning Management Systems (LMS). The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will follow the retention schedule for courses and organizations being stored in our Blackboard Learning Management System.

LMS Courses

LMS Courses
Semester Status Date of Migration
Spring 2020 Archived/Migrated Dec. 15, 2022
Summer 2020 Archived/Migrated Dec. 15, 2022
Fall 2020 Archived/Migrated Dec. 15, 2022
Spring 2021 Archived/Migrated May 15, 2023
Summer 2021 Archived/Migrated Aug. 15, 2023
Fall 2021 Archived/Migrated Dec. 15, 2023
Spring 2022 Active in Production May 15, 2024
Summer 2022 Active in Production Aug. 15, 2024
Fall 2022 Active in Production Dec. 15, 2024
Spring 2023 Active in Production May 15, 2025
Summer 2023 Active in Production Aug. 15, 2025
Fall 2023 Active in Production Dec. 15, 2025
Spring 2024 Active in Production May 15, 2026

This policy is intended to reduce the number of significant courses currently being stored in Blackboard and reduce the amount of storage costs to adhere to our Blackboard support policy. Courses older than 2 years in Blackboard will be migrated on our local server for an additional 5 years. Once a course is migrated the course will no longer be available in Blackboard to faculty and students. All migrated courses will permanently be deleted after the 5th year of being stored. Please reference the retention code 386 from the Record Retention Schedule and the Record Management Procedures (Section E #3).

Migrated Courses

Migrated Courses
Year Status
2015 Disposal
2016 Disposal
2017 Migrated (quick access)
2018 Migrated (quick access)
2019 Migrated (quick access)
2020 Migrated (quick access)
2021 Migrated (quick access)
2022 Active in Production
2023 Active in Production
2024 Active in Production

If a course is needed to be restored for any grade challenges or course content retrieval, the instructor must submit a ticket through our support portal at UTRGV.edu/coltthelp. 

The purpose of this policy is intended to reduce the number of recordings stored in Panopto and reduce the amount of storage costs to adhere our Panopto’s support policy and contracted storage and archived hours.

  • All video recordings that are older than 3 years and have not being watched in more than 1 year will be archived.
  • All Zoom to Panopto recordings that are older than 6 months will be archived.
  • All video recordings not watched in more than 13 months will be archived.
  • All archived videos will be permanently deleted after 1 year from the Archived repository.

Recommendations:

The purpose of this policy is to inform the users about the Respondus Monitor retention period. Respondus Monitor records students taking an online assessment. All videos are stored in the Respondus monitor cloud services for a period of 5 years. However, student recordings are also stored in Blackboard and will only be available for 5 years. This policy follows the UTRGV records retention schedule regarding the removal of Video Retention Period for Respondus Monitor.

Visit Respondus Monitor for more information.

The purpose of this policy is to provide faculty with information on the process of implementing new Blackboard Tool Integrations. If you are adopting a new teaching tool that integrates with Blackboard, faculty must submit a Software Assessment request form so that the Information Security Office (ISO) in conjunction with The Center for Online Learning Department (COLTT) can evaluate the tool/technology to see if it meets certain requirements before we configure the integration with our LMS.

For a list of available tools that are integrated into Blackboard please visit Blackboard Third-Party Tools for Faculty.

Note: Due to technology evaluation on accessibility, security, and university requirements, please allow up to 4 weeks for the request to be processed.

This policy is to explain the process and requirements for students who need access to student data from previous courses. The data includes blackboard assignments, projects, videos and etc. 

Student process

  1. Complete the Student Data Access Request Form
  2. Contact the instructor of record of the course(s) to get approval.
    • You may request faculty to email you a copy of the content requested or
    • Request faculty to provide you access to previously taken Blackboard courses and ask the instructor to submit a COLTT request to provide you access to the course(s).
      Note: if the instructor of record is no longer available to grant approval, department chair approval is needed.

COLTT process

  1. Faculty request through support portal will be received and worked on by a COLTT Staff member.
  2. COLTT staff will verify if the Student Data Access Request Form was submitted.
  3. Advise the student it will take up to 10 business day to process this request if approved by the instructor/department chair.
  4. If the course is not available on Blackboard. Send the Request to Restore Blackboard Course to the instructor if the instructor of record is no longer available to grant approval. Then we would need approval from Department Chair allowing us to grant student access to student data from previous courses.
  5. Once all approvals are received, assign this case to our LMS Administrator.

LMS Admin process

  1. Will receive the Student Data Access Request form from the student.
  2. If approved, LMS Admin will grant access to the student based on the instructor's time frame.
  3. Will notify student access has been granted and advise them the instructor has allowed XX days to get the data from the course(s).
  4. Once the days have been reached for the student, the LMS admin will remove student access and delete the course from Blackboard if it was restored.
  5. LMS Admin will close the case.

Please note: Archive courses that have already been deleted from our backup storage cannot be retrieved.

Need help?

For questions, assistance, or to report an issue, please contact the COLTT Help Desk at 956-665-5327 or 956-882-6792.

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