Policy
Active Courses
ITS retains academic courses on the Moodle server for 7 years after the course end date. After 7 years, courses are deleted from the server. Instructors who wish to store a local copy can Export or Backup a Moodle Course any time before 7 years. Faculty will be reminded annually of the course archiving and deletion schedule.
Course Backup Files
ITS takes a snapshot of each academic course at the conclusion of the semester and stores the backup file for 10 years. The backup file can be used to restore the course if content is inadvertently deleted or an instructor moves to another institution using Moodle. After 10 years, the course backup files are deleted. Instructors may request access to a backup file by contacting the Help Desk.
User Accounts
Deactivated Swarthmore user accounts with no Moodle enrollments are deleted in July of each year.
Deactivated Swarthmore user accounts with Moodle enrollments are deleted 7 years after the last Moodle login date.
Manually created Moodle accounts without activity for 2 years are deleted in July of each year.
Activity Logs
Moodle activity logs are retained for 120 days.
Rationale
Digital housekeeping is important. Removing older courses and inactive users keeps makes the Moodle system easier to navigate, improves server performance, and reduces storage costs. ITS also recognizes that content created by faculty and students is their property and doesn’t want to retain material for people no longer affiliated with the college.
The timeframe of 7 years of courses on the Moodle server was selected to provide enough time for faculty seeking tenure to access class materials and course evaluations and ensure access to courses offered sporadically. Active users are retained for a similar time in order to preserve responses in course evaluations.
ITS maintains a separate individual course backup for 10 years in case of inadvertent deletion or modification of content on the Moodle server or for special cases in which a professor requires access to their older course content.