On Tuesday, December 31, 2013, limited administrative access to SPARK will end. If you have course materials on the SPARK servers that you want to keep, you need to get them off before the end of December.
There are two options for getting your materials out of SPARK before the December 31st deadline.
1. USE THE SPARK TO MOODLE CONVERSION SERVICE
If you are planning to convert your SPARK course to a Moodle course, UMass Amherst has contracted with a third-party service to convert course materials and activities from SPARK to Moodle.
To assess if your SPARK course would be suited to this service, see:
http://www.oit.umass.edu/spark-moodle-conversion-service
If you believe your SPARK course is a good candidate for conversion to Moodle, complete the request form at:
https://www.oit.umass.edu/moodle/spark-moodle-conversion-request-form
UMass must receive your conversion request no later than Friday, November 29, 2013, as the conversion process can take up to a month.
For help with the SPARK to Moodle conversion process or questions, please contact the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@oit.umass.edu | 413-545-2823).
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2. BACK-UP YOUR SPARK COURSE MATERIALS AT THE INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA LAB
To manually back-up your SPARK course materials before the Tuesday, December 31, 2013 deadline, please contact the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@oit.umass.edu | 413-545-2823) to schedule an appointment.
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*SPARK, the local name for the Blackboard Vista learning management system (LMS), was used for on-campus courses at UMass Amherst from January 2006 until January 2013. For the last year, UMass Amherst has had a limited administrative license to allow for individual faculty to request backup of course materials from SPARK on a class-by-class basis.
Currently, there are course materials from Fall 2010 to Fall 2012 stored in SPARK. To find out if your course materials are still in SPARK, contact the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@oit.umass.edu | 413-545-2823).