UB is partnering with education technology company K16 Solutions to migrate and archive the university’s entire library of online course content.

K16 Solutions will move more than 15,000 courses from its current home on Blackboard to a new learning management system, D2L’s Brightspace. Also, UB will archive its historical content and student data on K16’s proprietary platform.

The migration project will begin in the spring of 2023.

UB chose to work with K16 Solutions to use its SystemMigration solution, an automated course migration service that the company says produces an error-free content transfer between learning management systems. The service will eliminate such manual processes as copying and pasting or cleaning up fragmented course content that bulk migration tools leave behind.

Starting in January 2024, UB will archive its historical course content and student data on K16’s DataArchiving platform. The goal is for UB to archive its student data at a fraction of the cost compared to archiving on its legacy learning management system. Also, UB can sync archived data and content immediately to Brightspace.

“We are excited to offer the UB community a seamless transition from Blackboard to Brightspace by using a more modern and sophisticated automated course migration method,” said Graham Hammill, vice provost for academic affairs. “We’re equally enthused to provide faculty and staff with a Brightspace-integrated archiving solution that makes course content and student data 100% retrievable and accessible. Thanks to our partnership with K16 Solutions, we feel confident and optimistic about our migration to Brightspace.”

“It’s clear that the University at Buffalo cares tremendously about the student, faculty, and staff experience as evidenced by their decision to eliminate the heavy burden of a complex LMS migration,” said Thomas Waite, president and CEO of K16 Solutions. “We are thrilled to help make this process as painless, seamless, and smooth as possible — and provide them a more modern and user-friendly option for retaining and accessing archived content and data.”