Northeastern University

Why & How to Archive Student Work

One of the most valuable assets for the improvement of teaching and learning is the work of current and former students. In our age of vast digital storage on desktops and servers there is no reason to lose this material simply because students move on from course to course and quite quickly through their college careers. Some of the reasons to archive student work are:

The electronic teaching support systems facilitate the archiving of student work. By using the assignment tool in Blackboard, instructors can save all the written assignments submitted by students. Individual and group student presentations can be recorded with simple video equipment and transferred to servers. CIETL is committed to helping with this process. As an example, please see these presentations made by faculty and students as part of a college program to introduce undeclared students to life in various majors.

Another example is one of many student submissions to a contest, sponsored by Student Affairs for students to submit the story of their "coolest coop experience."