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LMS Site Retention Period

Overview

Pepperdine University has adopted a retention period for sites on its learning management system (LMS). As years pass, the number of sites increases, consuming more resources. As of July 31, 2022, a five-year LMS retention period was adopted for our previous LMS, Courses/Sakai, and continues today for Pepperdine Canvas.

Benefits

To keep our LMS system running smoothly and promote modern accessibility practices, Pepperdine University has adopted a five-year LMS site retention period. The retention period will also promote best practices in stewardship of University resources, academic records retention, student privacy, and instructional design.

As a reminder to all faculty and staff, Pepperdine University has a web accessibility policy that must be considered when creating, reviewing, importing, or adopting class content or tools. The removal of older LMS content will reduce the likelihood of reusing outdated materials, especially those that may not adhere to the most recent accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.1 guidelines, published June 5, 2018).

Table of Contents

Letters of Recommendation (Sakai)

Remember, student accounts are deactivated 90 days after graduation. Official, final grades can always be located in WaveNet. In Courses/Sakai (our previous LMS), disabled student accounts, including associated assignments and grades, were no longer visible after account deactivation. Instructors are encouraged to download any key student data at the end of the term.

Retention Schedule

Pepperdine Canvas

Retention actions will become effective on August 1, 2030. At that time, sites older than 5 years will be eligible for removal. Notices will be sent to the community prior to this date.

Courses/Sakai Class and Project Site Removal — ON HOLD

Given the transition from Courses/Sakai to Pepperdine Canvas, the annual removal of older class sites is on hold. Project site creation has been disabled, and no new classes will be created as of Spring 2026. Community access to Courses/Sakai will be removed as of June 1, 2026. Be sure to download any critical content before that time.

Table of Historical Sakai Retention Periods
Permanent Deletion Date Creation Years of Sites for Removal Site Age At the Time of Planned Deletion
July 31, 2022 (class sites only) 2009-2014 8+ years old
July 31, 2023 (class sites), 
September 15, 2023 (project sites)		 2015-2017 (class sites), 
2009-2017 (project sites)		 6+ years old
July 31, 2024 (class and project sites) 2018 5+ years old

* In 2022, only class sites were removed. Starting in 2023, project sites were also included (2009-2017). The removal time for project sites was extended from July 31, 2023 to September 15, 2023 to offer additional review time.

Beginning in 2024, the staggered schedule ended, and the standard site retention period took effect, removing 5-year-old content on an ongoing annual basis each summer.

What You Need to Do

Review Old LMS Site Content

Guiding Questions

Consider the following steps when you review content from your old sites on the LMS:

  1. Do you still need it? Is this content still current or relevant to your latest class learning objectives or teaching materials? Is this project site still fulfilling the needs of my team?
  2. Is it accessible? Are students or colleagues who may need to use screen readers or other accessibility tools able to use this content?
  3. Do you already have a copy (or copies!) of it? You likely uploaded the content to the LMS from your computer. Do you have original copies on your computer hard drive or cloud storage? Or maybe you have been importing past class content each semester into your newer class sites, so you have copies there?

Locate Older LMS Sites

Courses/Sakai
  1. Visit courses.pepperdine.edu
  2. Select the "Worksite Setup" tool in your "Home" site
  3. If it helps, use the "Term" drop-down menu to select a past academic term
  4. You may select the "Creation Date" heading to sort by date (ascending or descending)
  5. You may use the "Viewing" drop-down menu to show up to 200 sites on a page
  6. Select (or right-click) a site to visit it
Pepperdine Canvas
  1. Visit canvas.pepperdine.edu
  2. Select the "Courses" option in the main navigation (left menu in a computer browser, Courses button in mobile app)
  3. Select "All Courses"
  4. Review the list of classes
  5. Use the "Term" table header to sort (ascending/descending)
  6. Select (or right-click) a site title to visit it

TIP: If you already have copies of the information on your computer, devices, cloud storage, or other LMS class sites, then you don't need to spend extra time downloading duplicate copies of older materials.

Retain Old Site Content

After your assessment of any older class or project sites, if there is content that is important to retain and you don't have other copies of it already, then it will be important to take steps to download the content or import materials to a new class or project site.

Download Your Older Courses/Sakai Content

Instructor or Maintain Users

If not already done, professors may request a class site migration from Courses/Sakai to Pepperdine Canvas. This is not a historical archive process, but is intended to move a definitive version of a class to Pepperdine Canvas for future teaching. No grades or student data transfers, only instructional content or settings. We will not migrate empty sites or duplicate copies of the same site.

To download grades or student artifacts, faculty should visit each of the old sites and refer to these instructions for the appropriate Courses/Sakai tools:

Remember, you can use the "Sites" menu of Courses to visit sites from specific academic terms. If you have hidden older class sites or want to determine the age of a project site, you can use the "Worksite Setup" tool in your "Home" site to view the Worksite Title, Type (Course or Project), Creator, Term (if Course site), Status (Published or Unpublished), and Creation Date for all of your sites. 

Student or Access Roles

Students interested in downloading their past class content will visit each class site that they still have access to. Unfortunately, there is no central tool or option to download all course content. Students will visit each site, each tool, and/or each activity. They will download their own content and any other content they have permission to download. Students should refer to any copyright statements in the course syllabus or confer with the instructor(s) to confirm that permission to download the faculty member's content has been approved.

 

FERPA Data Protections

When downloading content, be sure that academic records are protected. Professors must safeguard graded content, student submissions, and other materials considered academic records. Likewise, students must respect the materials and discussions of their classmates. Academic records, including graded materials, discussion board posts, and class meeting recordings, cannot be publicly shared without the express written authorization of the class participants.

 

Copyright Considerations

Lecture and other course materials are owned by the content creators, whether the professor, authors, textbook publishers, or other sources of the information. Please refer to any copyright or limitations of use statements in each class syllabus and check with each instructor for permission before saving any materials. Class materials must not be used for commercial purposes or shared publicly without the express written permission of the copyright holder(s).

Frequently Asked Questions

  Courses/Sakai: What is the difference between a class site and a project site?

Course or “class” sites are officially created sites intended for academic purposes. The creation of these sites is based on data from our student information system, WaveNet. In our old LMS, Courses/Sakai, Project sites were available to any official community member (current student, faculty, or staff) for projects, assignments, self-paced training courses, etc. Project site creation was disabled in 2025. Pepperdine Canvas does not support project sites; the community is encouraged to use Google Workspace for collaboration needs.

  How do I find the age of my site?

Courses/Sakai

You can find the creation date of every site you belong to by navigating to the "Worksite Setup" tool in your Home Site.

  1. Log in to Courses.
  2. Select the Worksite Setup tool on the left-hand panel in your "Home" site.
  3. A list of all your sites will be visible with "Worksite Title," "Type" (Course or Project), "Creator," "Term" (if a Course site), "Status" (Published or Unpublished), and "Creation Date." Select the "Creation Date" heading to sort either in ascending or descending order by date.

TIP: You can determine if you have edit access for a site by checking if a checkbox is present to the left of the Worksite Title.

Pepperdine Canvas

  1. Log in to Pepperdine Canvas.
  2. Select "Courses" in the main navigation (on a computer, it is in the left menu; on a mobile app, it is the "Courses" button).
  3. Select "All Courses."
  4. Use the "Term" column to locate past class sites.
  Why did the University establish a five-year retention period? (Why 5 years?)

Pepperdine University has adopted a five-year retention period since the majority of academic programs are for 4-years or fewer. Five years was selected for a little extra time for review, and was also generous in comparison to many other institutions that retain LMS class content for shorter periods of time.

At the end of the day, faculty need only to retain content that remains current and relevant to teaching. Instructors can and do already import content from prior terms into new class sites, reducing the need to retain multiple instances of the same content across multiple classes and terms. Importantly, reducing the storage, database, and system load on the LMS will lead to greater performance and reliability for current classes.

  What about doctoral students who may study beyond five years?

In the past, a one-year exception was made available for any sites that were used for doctoral programs that are longer than 4 years or project sites that are too cumbersome to review and update due to complex permissions or business processes. Given the transition away from Courses/Sakai, the 5-year retention removal process has been placed on permanent hold. Sites that exist today will remain until the service is decommissioned. Users are encouraged to download any data from Courses/Sakai before June 2026, when community access will be removed.

  How can instructors look back at class content in response to a former student requesting a letter of recommendation?

Professors can review past grade information in WaveNet, the official location for final academic grades. After students graduate from Pepperdine, however, their network accounts will be disabled and then removed. Once alumni network account deactivation happens, their information on Courses/Sakai will no longer be visible within the LMS. This means that roughly 90 days after graduation, professors will not be able to view or access past class information for alumni. Instructors are encouraged to download any data that may need to be preserved for longer than 5 years.

  How do I handle grade disputes if student content in Courses/Sakai is removed after five years?

All schools require quick action related to grade disputes. Some require action within three weeks (14 business days) of the dispute or the posting of final semester grades. No school allows disputes beyond one year (at most, two semesters for the "next non-summer term").

Caruso School of Law (CSOL)

See page 20, topic 6.32, "Modification of Grades" of CSOL's Academic Policy. Specifically, "For all examinations taken during the fall semester, any grade corrections must be made prior to the end of the following spring semester. For all examinations taken during the spring semester or summer session, any grade corrections must be made prior to the end of the following fall semester."

Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP)

See page 234, heading "Academic Dispute," within the GSEP Academic Catalog. Specifically, "... [action must be taken] within 14 business days of the dispute arising (excluding University holidays and term breaks)."

Graziadio Business School (PGBS)

See the topic "Grade Appeal" in the Academic Policies of the PGBS Academic Catalog. Specifically, "In either case, students have up to 30 calendar days from the date the grade was assigned to initiate the appeal process."

School of Public Policy (SPP)

See page 121, heading "Student Petition," within the SPP Academic Catalog. Specifically, "... student issues must be made within one semester of completion of the coursework…"

Seaver College

See the Registrar's Grade Disputes for Seaver College. Specifically, "This process must be initiated by the student before the midpoint of the next non-summer semester, which immediately follows the course in question."

 

See Also

 

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