Blackboard Course Quota Increase

Each course site in Blackboard is restricted to a size limit of 2 GB for course materials. You will automatically receive an error notification from Blackboard if your course has exceeded the size limit and you will no longer be able to upload any additional items to your course.

This quota is necessary to properly manage storage resources and ensure adequate system performance.

If you are already utilizing all the best practices as described on the CATE website, then we will process your course storage increase at 1GB.

Requirements

You've followed practical advice and tips to reduce storage, especially by moving video to Panopto, in your course. 

• Keep your courses free of old content, keeping only the files that students need. Before you start adding content to your course shell, take time to determine whether all files must be copied or not. 

• Store large files in an UIC-supported Cloud Storage tool such as Google Drive or Box, and link the files to your course instead of uploaded to Blackboard directly. This way, you will not store copies of the same file every time you copy your Blackboard course, and you can modify files on your desktop computer by syncing them to the cloud storage tool of your choice.

• Store videos associated with a Blackboard course in an UIC dedicated media server, like Echo360 or Panopto. This includes video assignments that students need to submit. Blackboard is not a streaming server and uploading media files degrades system performance.

• Avoid uploading the following file types directly into your Blackboard course:

  • Large images (tif/tiff, bmp, jpg, xif, heif, psd, svg, eps)

  • Narrated or media-rich PowerPoint (ppt, pptx, pps, ppm, ppsx, key)

  • Audio (mp3, mp4, wav)

  • Video (wmv, avi, mp4, m4v, mov)

  • Interactive assets (swf, flv)

  • Computer executables (iso, exe)

  • Compressed files (zip, rar, tar.gz, bz2)

Where Can I Get It?

Select the Request Course Storage Consultation button on this page.

How Do I Use It?

Here is where you can find Blackboard help for faculty and students.

How Can I Get Support?

If you are experiencing a problem with this service, please report it. If you just have a question, feel free to ask us.

Service Levels