Blackboard (Bb) Advice and Message Threads
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Table of Contents

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course management systems are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

What next in course management since Blackboard is taking aim at its own foot?

Moving Into Blackboard in a Big Way:  The University of Texas

Channel to the Internet

Positive Threads

Negative Threads

Training, Testimonials, and Videos 

Blackboard and Datatel Partnering

Nuventive's iWebfolio 

"Jury Sides With Blackboard in Patent Case," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/25/blackboard

A federal jury in Texas on Friday awarded the learning services giant Blackboard $3.1 million in its patent infringement lawsuit against a much smaller competitor, adding a new layer of complexity and uncertainty to a complex, uncertain market for higher education learning management systems.

The July 2006 lawsuit, closely watched (and much-derided by many) in the higher education technology world, accused the Canadian company Desire2Learn of infringing dozens of Blackboard patents for online course management and e-learning technologies. Blackboard sought $17 million in damages and an injunction barring Desire2Learn from continuing to infringe the patent. Blackboard came under heavy fire from campus technology officials, including a rare rebuke from Educause, higher education’s main technology association, for asserting the company’s patent rights to technologies that many argued were simple and longstanding technologies in wide use by corporate and open source learning systems.

After a two-week trial in Lufkin, Tex., and just a few hours of deliberation, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (which is seen as being friendly to patent holders) agreed with Blackboard that Desire2Learn’s learning platform uses technologies for which Blackboard received U.S. patents in January 2006. But its verdict gave the company far less than it was asking for, awarding Blackboard $2.5 million for lost profits and $630,000 in royalties.

In addition, the verdict allows the company to petition the judge in the case, Ron Clark, for an injunction against further patent infringement that would force Desire2Learn either to alter its products or to stop selling them to new customers in the United States.

In a statement via e-mail (but not posted on the company’s Web site), Blackboard’s president and CEO, Michael Chasen, said officials were “pleased that the jury recognized the importance of our contribution to e-Learning. We look forward to continuing to innovate and invest in new technologies that help education institutions around the globe improve teaching and learning.”

The statement also contained a statement in which Blackboard’s chief legal officer, Matthew Small, appeared to reiterate to fearful supporters of open source learning systems (such as Moodle and Sakai) that the company did not plan to pursue similar infringement claims against non-commercial competitors. “We also continue to stand behind our Patent Pledge which covers this patent and reflects our ongoing commitment to interoperating with and supporting the evolution of open source and home-grown systems,” Small said.

Desire2Learn officials, in a letter to customers, expressed disappointment with the jury verdict, but vowed to continue to oppose Blackboard’s patent enforcement efforts, not only to “defend ourselves vigorously” but to “stand up against Blackboard ... in the best interest of the entire educational community,” in the words of John Baker, the company’s president and CEO. Desire2Learn noted that the jury’s verdict was only one step in a multipronged process, that will include not just the likelihood of legal appeals but a continuing review of the legitimacy of Desire2Learn’s patents by the U.S. Patent Office.

The blogosphere, which tilts heavily against Blackboard on virtually any and all issues, took a generally dim view of the jury’s verdict. Some commentators sought to play down the significance of the jury’s verdict, noting that it gave Blackboard less than it had sought and that Desire2Learn’s patent is still under review by the U.S. patent office.

But others expressed fear that Blackboard would soon go after other commercial learning management software providers like Angel, and wondered whether Blackboard would abide by its pledge not to take aim at the open source systems that appear to be gaining ground against Blackboard, especially Moodle. Commentators generally agreed that the implications of the case won’t be clear for some time.

“It will take weeks, if not months, to sort out the fallout from the jury ruling yesterday in the Blackboard Inc. v. Desire2learn Inc. case,” Alfred H. Essa, associate vice chancellor and deputy chief information officer of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, wrote on his blog  The Nose. “Although all is not lost, this is a crushing blow to Desire2Learn, one of the few remaining commercial competitors to Blackboard in the higher education LMS market.”

Question
What next in course management since Blackboard is taking aim at its own foot?

September 18, 2007 message from Peters, James M [jpeters@NMHU.EDU]

Our (small and poor) University is looking at alternative to Blackboard to support both local and internet classes. I recall that this issue was discussed recently on this list and was wondering if any of you would be willing to provide some short statements about alternative products to Blackboard and your assessment of them. Bluntly, the merger between Blackboard and WebCt was, in my opinion, a disaster for the consumer. The existing Blackboard product is full of programming bugs and I would like to be able to go to the committee on which I serve with viable options to switching. However, the State of New Mexico also is looking into standardizing a product state-wide and so the alternatives need to be viable for larger Universities as well.

Any thoughts or comments would be welcome. Since I haven't used this list much, if there is an old archive of threaded discussions I can review that would be useful as well.

Thanks.

Jim Peters, PhD
Associate Professor of Accounting
School of Business
213 Sininger Hall
New Mexico Highlands University
Las Vegas, NM 87701

October 8, 2007 message from Allen M. Ford, MBA, MSSE, MFA [amfnbt@RIT.EDU]

My two cents: The Business Studies Department at NTID offers a variety of courses through the moodle platform set up on a local server. I find it a very attractive alternative to Bb and Desire2Learn (current RIT standard) in that it handles larger files (think DB) and is extremely instructor friendly. While I do "train" and help faculty set up courses, I find that once they learn how easy and intuitive it is, they require minimal hand-holding. In the past five years we have had no server related issues...upgrades require minimal techie intervention. In comparison with my experience teaching COB DL courses using Desire2Learn, if it were my decision, I would use moodle.

That said, I would encourage faculty to investigate what online resources are available from publishers. During a current textbook process, Wiley's EZ-Plus impressed the committee with its CMS that are content specific and ready to roll. Check it out at: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Brand/id-31.html

September 18, reply from Del DeVries [devriesd@MAIL.BELMONT.EDU]

The "what next" question that is most interesting to me is what technology is compelling for engaging students in learning? If I use Skype for online office hours, I believe that I am more accessible to students AND the opportunity for easy voice / chat / file transfer are good for solving some student problems. I can use Camtasia to create audio/video Flash demo's to illustrate a "how-to". Both Skype and Camtasia are good for communicating with students who may not physically show up in my office. But what are the other possibilities that are both cost effective, time effective, AND work to engage student learning?

The AECM (and Bob Jenson's archive of links) are a virtual treasure chest of idea's over the years. Today's students are very comfortable with wireless laptops, enhanced phones, and general savy for social networking with Facebook, etc. But at the end of the day I'm still asking the question of what technologies would be useful for engaging with tomorrow's (and today's) students.

 

Dr. Del DeVries, CPA, CISA
Assistant Professor of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business Administration
Belmont University 1900 Belmont Blvd Nashville, TN 37212 615-460-6930

Reply from Bob Jensen on September 18, 2007

Hi Del and Jim,

When there is an unregulated monopoly, expect both prices and patent infringement suits to skyrocket. Blackboard should've never been allowed to buy WebCT. My threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

There are various competitors to Blackboard competitors, many of whom have been involved in lawsuits with Blackboard and WebCT. Many of these competitors (e.g., Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor) are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc
Some schools with severe funding problems use Moodle.

The expense of Blackboard, and all of these alternatives, in fact is much more than licensing fees. The expensive problem is the technical support staff needed to both maintain the servers (these systems have their own servers) and to train users of the system, students and staff. This is an expense that never ends. Most importantly there must be relatively expensive backup systems. Servers crash and burn. If courses across a campus become dependent on those servers, it is vital to have backup systems that can be shifted into gear almost immediately. This is where IT staff become crucial.

Of course Blackboard and other vendors like eCollege can take all the IT headaches off campus. This is something I recommend for smaller colleges, but it is more expensive in some ways and cheaper in others considering the expensive and specialized IT skills needed to maintain servers and backup systems.

Below is a virtual-office-hours tidbit for the September 28 edition of Tidbits.  I wouldn't describe virtual office hours as a competitor to Blackboard as much as it addresses Del's question of “What next?” However, at Harvard this is “What now?” Various "What next?" scenarios are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm

There are many other “what next?” possibilities, the most important of which will be a joint effort (academe, standard setters, and industry) to develop massive Wiki-like and YouTube-like knowledge bases filled with pedagogical videos, spreadsheets, and hyperlinks on almost any accounting, auditing, and systems topic imaginable. These probably will be somewhat more secure than Wikipedia/YouTube, but it still will be in the open sharing and development spirit. I’m constantly amazed at the immense (over a billion) number of modules in Wikipedia that just grew and grew. My experience is that most of the modules are excellent except for some politically sensitive topics and highly specialized topics in technical disciplines.

This is why Camtasia is so important. More and more we will see YouTube-like videos that can be used tot take over more and more where the classroom leaves off. See some of the Acct 5341 and Acct5342 illustrations at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ (I’m not quite sure why I downloaded the Astaire-Powel and BravoAmerica videos in  this folder a long, long time ago --- Dah!)

In the future, instructors can focus more on motivation to learn and underlying theory while leaving the technical explanations to the knowledge bases where technical explanations and illustrations can be played over and over again and again until they are understood by users. This of course is very frightening to many instructors who are practiced at explaining technical modules and lousy at explaining underlying theory.

The searching will be partly like XBRL if the knowledge base items have XML tags and eventually, as Jagdish points out, Semantic Web searching --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm

It never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge is already available in Wikipedia and YouTube. These are open sharing knowledge bases to be used with caution and suspicion. But they are unbelievably vast in terms of history and, in the case of Wikipedia, full of reference links and highly informative user discussions. Knowledge has become so vast that it boggles our minds. Rather than be scholars filled with facts and figures, we will become scholars who can tap into facts, figures, and knowledge-base explanations that we’re educated enough to comprehend on an as-needed basis.

I can’t remember how to do half the things I put into Camtasia videos (especially in my MS Access videos), but I play them back once or twice and it all makes sense again. What an aid to me these videos are whenever I have to teach something in Access, Excel, XBRL, intangible assets valuation, etc. If only others in the academy would see fit to freely share their Camtasia videos. Sigh!

Anybody interested in developing Camtasia videos might look at my PowerPoint file on Camtasia at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/EdTech/PowerPoint/

Bob Jensen

Blackboard message threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm#Blackboard

The near-monopoly of course management systems since 1994 has been Blackboard (Bb) since Bb was allowed by the Government to buy out its WebCT arch competitor --- http://www.blackboard.com/us/index.Bb

Open Sharing Threat:  Let's Hope the Blackboard Monopolist Loses This One
The opening gavel sounded this week in a trial that is being closely watched by college and university technology officials -- a patent dispute between Blackboard Inc., which has become the giant of the education-software sector, and a smaller Canadian company called Desire2Learn. Blackboard had filed for the patent, which covers its e-learning software, in 1999. Critics say the patent is too broad and could be construed as covering many aspects of classroom software. If the patent holds up, they say, colleges that create their own course-management systems could be vulnerable to similar lawsuits. The Chronicle offers coverage of the opening arguments in the case, and the article is free even to non-subscribers.
Chronicle of Higher Education, February 13, 2008  --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2741&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Bob Jensen's threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course authoring and management systems are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology and distance education are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

February 25, 2008 Update

"Jury Sides With Blackboard in Patent Case," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/25/blackboard

A federal jury in Texas on Friday awarded the learning services giant Blackboard $3.1 million in its patent infringement lawsuit against a much smaller competitor, adding a new layer of complexity and uncertainty to a complex, uncertain market for higher education learning management systems.

The July 2006 lawsuit, closely watched (and much-derided by many) in the higher education technology world, accused the Canadian company Desire2Learn of infringing dozens of Blackboard patents for online course management and e-learning technologies. Blackboard sought $17 million in damages and an injunction barring Desire2Learn from continuing to infringe the patent. Blackboard came under heavy fire from campus technology officials, including a rare rebuke from Educause, higher education’s main technology association, for asserting the company’s patent rights to technologies that many argued were simple and longstanding technologies in wide use by corporate and open source learning systems.

After a two-week trial in Lufkin, Tex., and just a few hours of deliberation, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (which is seen as being friendly to patent holders) agreed with Blackboard that Desire2Learn’s learning platform uses technologies for which Blackboard received U.S. patents in January 2006. But its verdict gave the company far less than it was asking for, awarding Blackboard $2.5 million for lost profits and $630,000 in royalties.

In addition, the verdict allows the company to petition the judge in the case, Ron Clark, for an injunction against further patent infringement that would force Desire2Learn either to alter its products or to stop selling them to new customers in the United States.

In a statement via e-mail (but not posted on the company’s Web site), Blackboard’s president and CEO, Michael Chasen, said officials were “pleased that the jury recognized the importance of our contribution to e-Learning. We look forward to continuing to innovate and invest in new technologies that help education institutions around the globe improve teaching and learning.”

The statement also contained a statement in which Blackboard’s chief legal officer, Matthew Small, appeared to reiterate to fearful supporters of open source learning systems (such as Moodle and Sakai) that the company did not plan to pursue similar infringement claims against non-commercial competitors. “We also continue to stand behind our Patent Pledge which covers this patent and reflects our ongoing commitment to interoperating with and supporting the evolution of open source and home-grown systems,” Small said.

Desire2Learn officials, in a letter to customers, expressed disappointment with the jury verdict, but vowed to continue to oppose Blackboard’s patent enforcement efforts, not only to “defend ourselves vigorously” but to “stand up against Blackboard ... in the best interest of the entire educational community,” in the words of John Baker, the company’s president and CEO. Desire2Learn noted that the jury’s verdict was only one step in a multipronged process, that will include not just the likelihood of legal appeals but a continuing review of the legitimacy of Desire2Learn’s patents by the U.S. Patent Office.

The blogosphere, which tilts heavily against Blackboard on virtually any and all issues, took a generally dim view of the jury’s verdict. Some commentators sought to play down the significance of the jury’s verdict, noting that it gave Blackboard less than it had sought and that Desire2Learn’s patent is still under review by the U.S. patent office.

But others expressed fear that Blackboard would soon go after other commercial learning management software providers like Angel, and wondered whether Blackboard would abide by its pledge not to take aim at the open source systems that appear to be gaining ground against Blackboard, especially Moodle. Commentators generally agreed that the implications of the case won’t be clear for some time.

“It will take weeks, if not months, to sort out the fallout from the jury ruling yesterday in the Blackboard Inc. v. Desire2learn Inc. case,” Alfred H. Essa, associate vice chancellor and deputy chief information officer of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, wrote on his blog  The Nose. “Although all is not lost, this is a crushing blow to Desire2Learn, one of the few remaining commercial competitors to Blackboard in the higher education LMS market.”

Question
What's next in course management since Blackboard is taking aim at its own foot with monopoly pricing?

Bob Jensen's threads on alternatives to Blackboard --- See below!

Updates on Moodle --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm#Moodle

Updates on Sloodle and Second Life (virtual world learning) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#SecondLife
The above link includes accounting education applications of Second Life.

September 18, 2007 message from Peters, James M [jpeters@NMHU.EDU]

Our (small and poor) University is looking at alternative to Blackboard to support both local and internet classes. I recall that this issue was discussed recently on this list and was wondering if any of you would be willing to provide some short statements about alternative products to Blackboard and your assessment of them. Bluntly, the merger between Blackboard and WebCt was, in my opinion, a disaster for the consumer. The existing Blackboard product is full of programming bugs and I would like to be able to go to the committee on which I serve with viable options to switching. However, the State of New Mexico also is looking into standardizing a product state-wide and so the alternatives need to be viable for larger Universities as well.

Any thoughts or comments would be welcome. Since I haven't used this list much, if there is an old archive of threaded discussions I can review that would be useful as well.

Thanks.

Jim Peters, PhD
Associate Professor of Accounting
School of Business
213 Sininger Hall
New Mexico Highlands University
Las Vegas, NM 87701

October 8, 2007 message from Allen M. Ford, MBA, MSSE, MFA [amfnbt@RIT.EDU]

My two cents: The Business Studies Department at NTID offers a variety of courses through the moodle platform set up on a local server. I find it a very attractive alternative to Bb and Desire2Learn (current RIT standard) in that it handles larger files (think DB) and is extremely instructor friendly. While I do "train" and help faculty set up courses, I find that once they learn how easy and intuitive it is, they require minimal hand-holding. In the past five years we have had no server related issues...upgrades require minimal techie intervention. In comparison with my experience teaching COB DL courses using Desire2Learn, if it were my decision, I would use moodle.

That said, I would encourage faculty to investigate what online resources are available from publishers. During a current textbook process, Wiley's EZ-Plus impressed the committee with its CMS that are content specific and ready to roll. Check it out at: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Brand/id-31.html

September 18, reply from Del DeVries [devriesd@MAIL.BELMONT.EDU]

The "what next" question that is most interesting to me is what technology is compelling for engaging students in learning? If I use Skype for online office hours, I believe that I am more accessible to students AND the opportunity for easy voice / chat / file transfer are good for solving some student problems. I can use Camtasia to create audio/video Flash demo's to illustrate a "how-to". Both Skype and Camtasia are good for communicating with students who may not physically show up in my office. But what are the other possibilities that are both cost effective, time effective, AND work to engage student learning?

The AECM (and Bob Jenson's archive of links) are a virtual treasure chest of idea's over the years. Today's students are very comfortable with wireless laptops, enhanced phones, and general savy for social networking with Facebook, etc. But at the end of the day I'm still asking the question of what technologies would be useful for engaging with tomorrow's (and today's) students.

 

Dr. Del DeVries, CPA, CISA
Assistant Professor of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business Administration
Belmont University 1900 Belmont Blvd Nashville, TN 37212 615-460-6930

Reply from Bob Jensen on September 18, 2007

Hi Del and Jim,

When there is an unregulated monopoly, expect both prices and patent infringement suits to skyrocket. Blackboard should've never been allowed to buy WebCT. My threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

There are various competitors to Blackboard competitors, many of whom have been involved in lawsuits with Blackboard and WebCT. Many of these competitors (e.g., Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor) are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc
Some schools with severe funding problems use Moodle.

Moodle Homepage --- http://moodle.org/ The good news is that Moodle is free. A lot of colleges, especially small colleges, changed to Moodle after Blackboard commenced monopoly pricing. You can track Moodle News (the good, the bad, and the ugly) at http://eduspaces.net/moodlenews/weblog/160022.html Moodle purportedly is very flexible, in part, because it has open source coding. Many of the positives are outlined at http://moodle.com/ There is also a help desk. Like many open source options, including Open Source Office, Moodle keeps getting better and better. Old criticisms may no longer be applicable. I recently gave an education technology workshop for accounting educators in Mississippi. Many of the users were happy with Moodle. And there's Sloodle for open source virtual learning software --- http://www.sloodle.com/ December 4, 2007 message from Vidya Second Life is a 3D virtual environment and in that regard not a competitor to Moodle at all. Sloodle is actually the Moodle counterpart to courses taught in Second Life and in that sense it's symbiotic relationship of sorts between the 3D immersive virtual environment and astandard 2D learning environment :-). Vidya Ananthanarayanan Instructional Support Manager Center for Learning and Technology Trinity University vidya@trinity.com/210.999.7346| http://www.trinity.edu/clt

The expense of Blackboard, and all of these alternatives, in fact is much more than licensing fees. The expensive problem is the technical support staff needed to both maintain the servers (these systems have their own servers) and to train users of the system, students and staff. This is an expense that never ends. Most importantly there must be relatively expensive backup systems. Servers crash and burn. If courses across a campus become dependent on those servers, it is vital to have backup systems that can be shifted into gear almost immediately. This is where IT staff become crucial.

Of course Blackboard and other vendors like eCollege can take all the IT headaches off campus. This is something I recommend for smaller colleges, but it is more expensive in some ways and cheaper in others considering the expensive and specialized IT skills needed to maintain servers and backup systems.

Below is a virtual-office-hours tidbit for the September 28 edition of Tidbits.  I wouldn't describe virtual office hours as a competitor to Blackboard as much as it addresses Del's question of “What next?” However, at Harvard this is “What now?” Various "What next?" scenarios are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm

There are many other “what next?” possibilities, the most important of which will be a joint effort (academe, standard setters, and industry) to develop massive Wiki-like and YouTube-like knowledge bases filled with pedagogical videos, spreadsheets, and hyperlinks on almost any accounting, auditing, and systems topic imaginable. These probably will be somewhat more secure than Wikipedia/YouTube, but it still will be in the open sharing and development spirit. I’m constantly amazed at the immense (over a billion) number of modules in Wikipedia that just grew and grew. My experience is that most of the modules are excellent except for some politically sensitive topics and highly specialized topics in technical disciplines.

This is why Camtasia is so important. More and more we will see YouTube-like videos that can be used tot take over more and more where the classroom leaves off. See some of the Acct 5341 and Acct5342 illustrations at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ (I’m not quite sure why I downloaded the Astaire-Powel and BravoAmerica videos in  this folder a long, long time ago --- Dah!)

In the future, instructors can focus more on motivation to learn and underlying theory while leaving the technical explanations to the knowledge bases where technical explanations and illustrations can be played over and over again and again until they are understood by users. This of course is very frightening to many instructors who are practiced at explaining technical modules and lousy at explaining underlying theory.

The searching will be partly like XBRL if the knowledge base items have XML tags and eventually, as Jagdish points out, Semantic Web searching --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm

It never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge is already available in Wikipedia and YouTube. These are open sharing knowledge bases to be used with caution and suspicion. But they are unbelievably vast in terms of history and, in the case of Wikipedia, full of reference links and highly informative user discussions. Knowledge has become so vast that it boggles our minds. Rather than be scholars filled with facts and figures, we will become scholars who can tap into facts, figures, and knowledge-base explanations that we’re educated enough to comprehend on an as-needed basis.

I can’t remember how to do half the things I put into Camtasia videos (especially in my MS Access videos), but I play them back once or twice and it all makes sense again. What an aid to me these videos are whenever I have to teach something in Access, Excel, XBRL, intangible assets valuation, etc. If only others in the academy would see fit to freely share their Camtasia videos. Sigh!

Anybody interested in developing Camtasia videos might look at my PowerPoint file on Camtasia at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/EdTech/PowerPoint/

Bob Jensen

Updates on Sloodle and Second Life (virtual world learning) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#SecondLife
The above link includes accounting education applications of Second Life.

The history of course management systems --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Blackboard Announces General Availability of the Blackboard Content System, March 9, 2004  --- http://www.blackboard.com/about/press/prview.htm?id=269 

Blackboard Inc., a leading enterprise software company for e-Education, today announced the general availability of the Blackboard Content System™. Currently being implemented by 19 academic institutions, the Blackboard Content System benefits students, faculty and campus IT administrators by lowering the costs and increasing the simplicity of managing learning content, digital assets and e-Portfolios in an enterprise learning environment. The announcement was made in a keynote presentation to an audience of approximately 1,300 attendees at the 2004 Blackboard Users Conference in Phoenix, AZ.

The Blackboard Content System is one system in the Blackboard Academic Suite™, a comprehensive family of integrated applications that provides a unified enterprise environment for teaching, learning, research, knowledge-sharing, communication, and student life. With Blackboard’s common platform, students, instructors and other community members quickly acclimate to a look and feel that makes the online environment as familiar as the offline campus.

The three best-of-breed solutions that make up the Blackboard Academic Suite, the Blackboard Learning System™, Blackboard Content System and Blackboard Portal System™, are made more powerful together through a shared architecture, consistent interfaces, seamless file sharing, and robust administration features. Scalable from a single department to an entire university system, the Blackboard Academic Suite provides an integrated educational experience for students, faculty and staff, and an integrated management view for IT departments.

“Blackboard has rapidly become an integral part of education at Princeton, and enhanced nearly every aspect of that education, both by facilitating existing practices, but also by making possible entirely new practices that will help maintain and enhance Princeton's leadership in higher education,” stated Serge Goldstein, Director of Academic Services, Princeton University. “The Blackboard Content System will enable our faculty to more effectively manage and reuse course content.”

The Blackboard Content System incorporates application capabilities in four key areas: 

• Learning Content Management – easily and effectively share and reuse large volumes of individual content assets across courses, organizations and institutions in a cost-effective manner. 
  
  
• e-Portfolio Management – assemble, present and share information within online portfolios for student and/or faculty to use in academic growth documentation, career evaluation and course preparation. 
  
  
• Virtual Hard Drive Management – cost-effectively accommodate the virtual storage needs of today’s digital education environment. 
  
  
• Library Digital Asset Management – create an interactive environment for faculty to search, access and incorporate digital library resources for use in course preparation. Nineteen clients have already decided to license the new Blackboard Content System, including such innovative educational institutions as Princeton University, Seton Hall University, United States Military Academy at West Point, Hacienda La Puente Unified School District and Nanyang Technical University (Singapore).

“The Blackboard Content System provides students and faculty with better ways to track and navigate learning resources and to showcase the work products and milestones of their educational careers through e-Portfolios,” said Matthew Pittinsky, Chairman of Blackboard. “Already we have seen a great response from our early adopters, and we are pleased to be showcasing the Blackboard Content System this week at our 6th Annual Users Conference.”

From Syllabus News on March 14, 2003

LEARNING SYSTEMS -- Syracuse University has adopted Blackboard Learning System for campuswide use in supporting face-to-face classes. This spring, in the final phase of a pilot program before going to the enterprise, Syracuse has 100 faculty teaching 153 courses to more than 3,000 students using Blackboard. The school said it is making the move because of Blackboard’s ability to scale from 3,000 to 18,000 users, as well as its support of open standards and its ability to integrate with its PeopleSoft student information system.

From Syllabus News on April 30, 2002

Blackboard Targets WebCT Users in Switch Offer

Course management developer Blackboard Inc. said it would offer universities a program to enable schools using the WebCT platform to switch their existing courses to the Blackboard Learning System. In addition to WebCT, Blackboard said its EasySwitch program targets schools which use multiple course management systems and want to standardize on Blackboard. The company said its program uses proprietary technology developed to handle the conversion of existing courses to the open Blackboard format, which is based on IMS standards. Consultantgs will work closely with the school to ensure its data is accurately transferred, properly formatted, and delivered correctly in the Blackboard Learning System.

Bob Jensen's threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/blackboard.htm 

Blackboard:  Some things really are bigger (and better)  in Texas

"Cultivating Enlightened Enthusiasm," by Mark Decker, Morrie Schulman, and Joe Sanchez, Syllabus, December 2000, pp. 16-22.

When the University of Texas at Austin selected the enterprise version of Blackboard to help implement its University portal --- UT Direct --- and to create course sites for all 11,000 courses taught at the university, only twenty-five faculty members were invited to pilot-test the courseware.  As other faculty and staff became aware that course sites were available, however, they asked to be included in the process.  this open access to Blackboard course shells, each populated with registered students, created both opportunities and problems.

The University of Texas actually implemented and supports two systems --- Blackboard and WebCT, although Blackboard will be more prevalent. 

"Customized Portal Provides Tailor-Made Information and Services." by Ginger Dillard http://www.utexas.edu/computer/news/features/0010/customization.html 

Students, faculty and staff at UT amount to a combined population of over 60,000 making it seem "virtually" impossible to please them all with one Web site. Yet, in a world of mass production, technology has made it possible to embrace personalization. Customization is key; and UT Direct makes the grade.

UT Direct is an interactive Web site that provides students, faculty and staff with access to University services anytime, anywhere. As part of the e-University initiative, the earliest services incorporated into UT Direct are primarily geared towards students. However, services for faculty and staff are already available and more are in the works.

"The beauty of UT Direct is that users can customize it. Almost everything can be changed to meet individual needs," Dana Cook, the UT Direct project manager, said. "With over 40 services available, it's important that users be able to rearrange their home page to fit their lives."

Channel to the Internet

Blackboard has a new service to "channel into the Internet."  From EduNet, T.H.E. Journal, October 2000, p. 44 --- http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3101.cfm 

Blackboard Inc. announces the launch of Blackboard.com, an e-Learning Web site with three channels that provide customizable, subject-specific academic resources; global, interactive communities for students and instructors; and Blackboard’s online course creation capability. The site is accessible to anyone who possesses a Web browser, and the page is also integrated seamlessly into Blackboard 5, the company’s software platform.

Accessible channels on the site include Blackboard CourseSites, Blackboard Resources and Blackboard Communities. The Course- Sites, a large tool for creating and taking online courses, also provides online supplements to classroom instruction. Instructors can create courses for free, or they can pay a modest registration fee that provides enhanced services, including the ability to charge an enrollment fee for their courses. The Blackboard Resources incorporates Blackboard’s Web-based academic resource center, and provides teachers and learners with news, full-text journal articles and annotated links organized into 239 disciplines. The Blackboard Communities allow students and instructors to join in online discussions relevant to their academic or professional interests. Students can interact with peers studying the same subjects at institutions worldwide, and instructors can communicate with scholars in their fields across the globe. Blackboard, Inc., Washington, D.C., (202) 463-4860, www.blackboard.com 

Positive Threads

Scenarios from Bob Jensen

Scenario 1 --- Professor Private
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

In this first scenario, suppose Professor Private wants to share material with students in a class but not with persons outside the class.  For example, the publisher of her textbook provides her with course aids and problem solutions that she can share with her students as long as she does not make the material available to the world in general.  She also prefers not to let anybody but her students read her lecture notes.  On Trinity's  TUCC HTML server, about the only security that is possible is to limit awareness of the course URL.  But this is an extremely weak form of security since most anyone can find the material.  In some cases, the material can be stumbled upon by outsiders simply by using a web search engine.  It is not possible to have secure passwords on our HTML server.  Instructors can put Javascript or VBscript passwords on documents, but these passwords cannot keep ten year old kids from easily breaking into those documents.  The Blackboard server allows for very secure password protection.  Nothing is perfectly secure.  For example, students might disclose passwords to unauthorized outsiders.  But Blackboard password risks are much lower than the risks on the HTML server.

I am reminded by John Howland that Trinity University instructors can request space on HTML servers in the Computer Science Department to achieve password protection of HTML files.

Scenario 2 --- Professor Quizalot
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Quizalot never will give any major examinations other than proctored examinations in a classroom.  However, he would like to administer weekly quizzes that do not chew up class time or take his time in grading.  Such quizzes are often administered as an incentive for students to complete assigned readings before class.  In one of my courses I have a textbook that provides online chapter quizzes that are administered and graded each week at the publisher's website.  I require that students take a quiz each week, although the quizzes comprise a very small percentage of the final grade.

What I do to prevent cheating is to assign a partner to every student, and I change the partnerships every week.  Each student is proctored by his or her partner on a remote-site computer.  Partners then sign a form that no unauthorized materials were used during the quiz and that the quiz was not taken by the designated student.  The attest form that each partner signs can be viewed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5342/attest.htm 

Suppose that Professor Quizalot at Trinity University would like to put his own quizzes online on the HTML server.  It is not possible presently to have the student answers automatically graded on the server and recorded in a grade book maintained on the server.  The only alternative at present would be to have the students email their answers and then grade them by hand.  The Blackboard server allows instructors to both administer and automatically grade online quizzes.

Blackboard Tips on Exam/Quiz Security

A useful feature in Blackboard is that it allows quizzes that randomly select question blocks from question pools. As long as the question pools are larger than the quiz, each student gets a different quiz. Multiple pools can be accessed for each quiz so that topical coverage and difficulty is consistent across students. I use blackboard for weekly quizzes to motivate students to stay current, but the midterm and the final are administered in class.

I also find essay questions on blackboard to be useful for days that a case discussion is scheduled. I can review students' answers before class to see how they are thinking about a case. I have blackboard randomly select from a question pool of pre-assigned questions so students don't know which specific questions they are going to see but they can prepare answers to a larger set of question before starting the quiz. I have received very positive feedback from students that it helps them to be better prepared for class discussion. It is also less work and easier to adminster than ontinuously collecting, grading, and returning case write-ups.

****************************************
 Leslie Kren
Associate Professor
School of Business University of WI - Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI 53201 office: 414 229-6075 fax: 414 229-6957
 lkren@uwm.edu    http://www.uwm.edu/~lkren/ 
****************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Stone
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Sent: 3/13/01 8:27 AM Subject:
Re: AECM Digest - 11 Mar 2001 to 12 Mar 2001 (#2001-65)

Hi all,
Re: the blackboard question. I do all quizzes and exams (including the final) in class using blackboard and laptops. Students love this because they get immediate feedback on the objective portions of the exam -- we go over the exam as soon as everyone completes it. I love it because the grading is automatic.

Security is no more or less of an issue than for in-class paper exams. The major risk is the network / system. If it goes down then you've lost the class session (unless you generate paper copies of the exam -- which I do for major exams). To date, I've been lucky and had no major network problems.

****************************************
Dan Stone,
Gatton Endowed Chair of Accounting,
Univ. of Kentucky,
Von Allmen School of Accountancy, 355 Business & Economics, Lexington, KY 40506-0034 * internet: dstone@pop.uky.edu   www: http://gatton.uky.edu/GattonPeople/People/DepartList/AccDeptList/AccFac/ accf ac_14.html  phone: 859-257-3788, fax: 859-257-3654, office: 425G Business & Economics office: 425G Business & Economics
****************************************

Scenario 3 --- Professor Rome Roams
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Rome roamed to a conference in Rome during a very crucial week in the semester when students are engaging in team projects.  She would like to participate in each team's deliberations while in Rome.  With the Blackboard server, she can have each team meet in an online Blackboard chat room rather than in a face-to-face meeting.  In doing so, she and the students may discover that the online chats are more effective and efficient than having to schedule face-to-face meetings between team members and the instructor.

Scenario 4 --- Professor Mentor
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Mentor assembled a team of six leading experts who agreed to meet in Blackboard chat rooms once a week with teams of students.  Professor Mentor wants students to interact with leading experts on some rather advanced topics of her particular course.

One feature of Blackboard that is greatly appreciated is the ease by which Blackboard enables her to thread discussions together throughout the course.

Scenario 5 --- Professor Sharon Lightener
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Sharon Lightner from San Diego State University coordinates an innovative international accounting course that initially had five students and a professor from each of six universities in five nations who met simultaneously for an entire semester via a multimedia online classroom in which all participants could see, hear, and communicate in "classes" that were in reality chat rooms.  Although Dr. Lightner did not use Blackboard, it is possible to use Blackboard for such purposes.

In addition to students and faculty, a leading accounting practitioner from each nation met with students in these "virtual" classrooms.  Also, a representative from an accounting standard setting body met with students in these online chat rooms.

Dr. Lightner's innovative course has been very successful.  Although the number of universities has been reduced to four (in Switzerland, Spain, Hong Kong, and the U.S.), the course itself is constantly improving.  You can read more about this course at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255light.htm.

Scenario 6 --- Professor Knowbeans
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Knowbeans does not know beans about authoring for the web and does not care to spend more than one hour learning about web authoring.  One hour is really not nearly enough time for learning how to put course materials up on Trinity's HTML server.  One hour just may be plenty of time for Knowbeans to learn how to put up course materials on the Blackboard server.

Scenario 7 --- Professor Suspicious
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Although the HTML server has been very reliable at Trinity University. Professor Suspicious just does not trust a single system to always be reliable.  Even though a Blackboard server is housed on the Trinity University campus, it is also possible to serve up courses from Blackboard's external servers.  If the Trinity system failed for whatever reason, course materials could be quickly transferred to the external servers.

Scenario 8 --- Professor Research
Why Trinity University Faculty May Prefer Blackboard to Our Traditional HTML Server

Professor Research at Trinity University wants to conduct an international survey.  It is both technically difficult to configure and against TUCC policy to configure the HTML server to allow her respondents to fill out an online form and submit it to the server for automatic tabulation of the responses on the server.  If she puts the survey up on Blackboard, however, it becomes quite easy to put the form online and have the responses tabulated on the Blackboard server.  She can even create chat rooms where small groups of respondents collaborate in submitting a "group" response.

Blackboard FAQs
Although many universities are serving up Blackboard from on-campus servers, Blackboard Inc. also provides an  external-server system called Blackboard.com.  The following FAQs appear at http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html 

http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#1 
What is Blackboard Inc.?
Blackboard Inc. is the leading education platform on the Internet. It provides one of the world's most popular and effective platforms for teaching and learning over the Internet and powers the online learning environments at some of the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities. Only Blackboard has a three-tiered roadmap - we call it Universal Learning Solutions (ULS). ULS enables educators and institutions to enter online teaching at a level that most closely matches their needs: single course Web sites free with Blackboard.com, multiple course Web sites with Blackboard CourseInfo, and entire online campuses with Blackboard Campus.

http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#2 
 What is Blackboard.com?
Blackboard.com is a FREE service that enables instructors to add an online component to their classes, or even host an entire course on the Web. Without knowing any HTML, you can quickly create your own CourseSite^TM - a Web site that brings your learning materials, class discussions, and even tests online.

 http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#3   
As an instructor, how can Blackboard.com help me?
Blackboard.com is an instructor's answer to harnessing the power of the World Wide Web. Our web site is so intuitive, it guides you through five simple steps for creating a virtual class - with no programming languages or HTML to learn. If you can surf the Internet, you can create a course on Blackboard.com. It is that simple. And it only takes about five minutes.  Blackboard.com incorporates numerous features to enrich the online learning experience:

• Asynchronous Communication (threaded discussions)
• Synchronous Communication (real-time chat and whiteboard)
• Assessment Tools and Gradebook
• Collaborative Work Groups
• Content Creation (e.g. syllabus and course description pages)
• Database Reporting and CourseSite Statistics
• Messaging System
• Online File Exchange (between instructor and student)
• Online Tutorial
• User Tracking

Our free service enables instructors to incorporate a powerful supplement to coursework, improve student performance, create an innovative forum to discuss lessons, and customize a teaching plan to each student’s unique learning style.

http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#8 
If courses are free, how does Blackboard.com make money?
Blackboard.com is part of Blackboard Inc., an educational software development company. Blackboard Inc.'s primary product is CourseInfo^sm a software solution that allows organizations and institutions to implement CourseSite technology for the entire organization. There is an annual fee for CourseInfo per license and this is how the Blackboard Inc. business is funded.

http://company.blackboard.com/Bb/faqs.html#9 
What is the difference between the Blackboard.com and CourseInfo?
Blackboard.com is a free, Web-based service offered not only to educational institutions and businesses but also to the general public. CourseInfo is a software solution that allows organizations and institutions to implement CourseSite technology for the entire organization

Blackboard Testimonial Videos from Northwestern University Faculty (Free Downloads) --- http://www.at.northwestern.edu/blackboard/ 
Most Windows users will want to choose the Windows Media versions.

Trinity University faculty may access these video files on my Drive J on the LAN network path 
J:\blackboard\northwestern 
These videos play on my Windows Media Player.  On my rather dated and slow computer, the audio works great, but the video gets somewhat out of synchronization with the audio.  Nevertheless, I liked these free video testimonials about using the Blackboard system.  You can read more about Blackboard at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/blackboard.htm 

These are brief testimonials from Blackboard-using faculty from Northwestern University:  Dwight Conquergood (Professor of Performance Studies), Kathy Spier (Management and Strategies Professor in the Kellogg Graduate School of Business), and Jillana Enteen. (Assistant Professor in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature Studies).  Professor Conquergood was a first-time user of this type of technology, whereas Professor Enteen was a former user of WebCT.  She claims Blackboard is easier to use and more reliable.  (In fairness, WebCT and other competitors have upgraded versions that may make her claims somewhat dated.)   Professor Spier has used Blackboard for two years.

Kathy Spier comments on the advantages for communicating with students in large classes.  Professor Conquergood uses Blackboard in a small class of 14 students in a graduate course.  His students like the discussion boards, which he calls cyber roundtables.  Professor Enteen comments on her use of Blackboard's personalized gradebook.  She also likes the discussion board feature.

Blackboard Training Videos

• Blackboard's Corporate Video --- http://company.blackboard.com/video/index.cgi 
  
  

• San Diego State University will soon have a Blackboard Version 5.5 available at http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/its/blackboard/student/gettingstarted/video.html 
  
  

• Saginaw Valley State University

Training Tutorials

• Duke University --- http://courses.duke.edu/common/manual/index.html 
  Also note the page at http://courseinfo.duke.edu/training.html 
  
  

• San Diego State University --- http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/its/blackboard/instructor/gettingstarted/coursesite.html  
  
  

• Wiley Higher Education -  http://jws-edcv.wiley.com/college/blackboard/faq/1,1163,,00.html 
  
  

• You can create a free course and read testimonials at http://www.blackboard.net/ 

I have a favor to request from you:

If you find some good training sites, CDs, videos, or whatever else related to BlackBoard or WebCT, please let me know at rjensen@trinity.edu 
Thanks!

Bob Jensen's History and Future of Course Authoring Technologies ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 

Bob Jensen's message sent out on TigerTalk, April 18, 2000

The Blackboard server is now running at Trinity University. This summer, faculty may want to take some time to put course materials up on the Blackboard server. My great hope for this server is that faculty need no technical skills to put interactive materials online, conduct tests and research surveys that are automatically tabulated, and manage entire courses. In addition there are chat rooms.

After I have some time to play with Blackboard, I will try to pass along some ideas for courses. In the meantime, here are some ideas that other faculty have found useful at over 1,500 colleges who also adopted the Blackboard, WebCT, and similar servers. You can read more about such web authoring servers at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245soft1.htm 

In the above document I provide many links and facts about the Blackboard. server.

Here are some ideas to think about in designing your courses for the Blackboard:

* Focus on major concepts --- hypertext study aids to guide students through complex concepts.

* Online quizzes with feedback --- automatically graded by the system with results reported back to the instructor.

* Password restricted entry to selected materials (e.g., answers).

* Flashcards with multimedia --- for those topics that need drill for faculty who still believe in drill for some topics and some students. For example, language drills or financial statement analysis drills can be very helpful to students.

* Links to timely, up-to-date resources to supplement your classes.

* Discussion questions --- preloaded by course module to stimulate classroom discussion.

* An interactive calendar to identify important dates such as exams, assignment due dates and more.

* Online communication tools (email, chat and threaded discussion) for student-to-student and instructor-to-student interaction.

* Management tools that allow you to track and monitor your student's progress, grade quizzes, and generate class reports.

You may want to see my advice to new faculty at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 
Bob Jensen

Messages Sent Prior to Year 2000

Dave Feeney gave me permission to share the following message with other educators regarding Blackboard-based Faculty Development:

Dear Dr. Jensen,

My name is Dave Feeney. You may not remember me, but we met over lunch in Philadelphia with Dr. Eric Press. Since then, I have begun to work full time for the School of Business and Management here at Temple University.

I wanted to say "hello", and tell you that I feature your site in my Blackboard-based Faculty Development Course for FOX School Faculty:

http://courseinfo.temple.edu/courses/dfeeney_facdev/   

You may visit my course as a Guest by clicking on the link above, then typing GUEST as your Username and Password.

Your Trinity site is a clickable link in External Links, inside the Faculty Websites folder.

"Guesting" will also enable you to see 6 of the 8 Course areas. Feel free to look around and explore how we are using Blackboard for faculty training.

I hope you're doing well. My new FOX SBM office is now next to the accounting department in Speakman Hall 300. Drs. Eric Press and Steve Fogg in Accounting send their best.

My best,

Dave Feeney Director, Digital Education FOX School of Business & Management 215-204-2727 DistanceEd@aol.com http://oll.temple.edu/davefeeney 

Tony Tinker wrote the following with respect to Blackboard

Regarding you interest in "innovative" cost accounting courses, while not quite in line with this, my students are heavy users of Blackboard software in their Accounting Information Systems course. They complete a substantial writing / essay component (not the "short essay" variety) that is undertaken individually, as well as collaboratively in project groups. While they cover the necessary technical computing and accounting stuff, there is great emphasis on understanding the history of technology (including its social history) and relating that to understanding changes in the profession, and the accounting workplace today.

I would suggest that the innovative potential of communications technology lies, not in doing "more accounting", but in developing communication skills in the manner indicated above.

Go to: http://lavinia.cis.cuny.edu:8001/ 

Click on the third course down on the list: [Acc3202xx25, Accounting Information Systems, Tony Tinker]

When prompted, Enter: Student Id: FA0367, Password: 19780719

This gives you access to the course, as a member of student group 1 (you have access to this group's work area; it is one of 8 groups in the course).

Two routes that may be of interest from the main menu:

 

1. EXTERNAL LINKS (follow the links and this takes you to the syllabus). 2. COMMUNICATIONS > Group Pages > Group 1 (scroll to the bottom) > Discussion Board (here you will find group discussion leading up to the first electronic essay assignment -- described in the ANNOUNCEMENTS section of the course.

Please contact me if you have any problems.

Fraternally

Tony Tinker 
Professor & Co-Editor Critical Perspectives on Accounting The Accounting Forum 
Baruch College: Box E-723 City 
University of New York 17 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10010 USA Tel: 212 802 6436 Fax: 212 802 6423 Email: TonyTinker@msn.com Email Tony_Tinker@baruch.cuny.edu 
Standing Critical Conference Website: http://bus.baruch.cuny.edu/critical/ 
Accounting Information Systems Course Site: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/upload/ttinker/3202HOME.htm

Message from  from Roger Debreceny on January 31, 2000 (Positive Comment)

After a pretty unsatisfactory period using TopClass, my institution is switching to using BlackBoard. In the interim period before BlackBoard is loaded on our servers, I have been using the free services from http://www.blackboard.com  I am impressed with the design of the shell and the ease with which it can be taught to technophobic colleagues. Students have also taken quickly to the interface.

Are there any other AECM members using BlackBoard in an institutional environment, as distinct from the free online service? If so, please email me directly.

Thank you,

Roger Debreceny, PhD, FCPA, 
CMA Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, 
Room S3-B1-B61 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 
rogerd@netbox.com adebreceny@ntu.edu .sg http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/adebreceny  
ICQ 22958324 Ph: +65 790 6049 Fax: +65 791 3697

Message from Phil Knutel on April 18, 2000 (Positive Comment)

We launched a Blackboard Courseinfo server here at Bentley the second week of January, and the response from faculty has been overwhelming. Some three months later, we have about 150 course websites up on it (though probably only 100 are really using a lot of the functionality). Overall, most faculty have found it very easy to use and have been pretty impressed by the variety of features. When I go to conferences and talk with my colleagues, many of whom have implemented Blackboard, WebCT, or other similar apps, there is almost universal praise for Blackboard's Courseinfo and very mixed reviews for the other products. We researched about a dozen competing products (many of these comparisons are linked from Blackboard's website), and it has been the hands-down winner in most of these evaluations.

I can see why Germain might want to stick with using Frontpage if that is what he is used to, and I could see those who have done their own webpages using HTML editors feeling constrained by the Courseinfo structure. However, the features that can be used to enrich a course found in Courseinfo would be nearly impossible for an individual, using HTML or an HTML editor like Frontpage, to create and maintain. Plus, FTPing files to a web server, getting the necessary (and secure) access to do this, explaining this process to novice technology users, etc. can present real challenges at many institutions. IF you are comfortable with viewing a Blackboard Courseinfo site simply as a course resource/tool and not as a place to creatively express yourself/your course on the web, then Courseinfo's easy to use interface and loads of features (that someone else maintains!) make it the ideal choice. It's not perfect, but the company really seems to understand the needs of faculty and are fixing current features and implementing new ones all the time.

Feel free to go to http://ecourses.bentley.edu  to see the front end we designed for our Blackboard server.

Phillip Knutel, Ph.D. Director of Academic Technology Bentley College Waltham, MA
[pknutel@LNMTA.BENTLEY.EDU] 

Message from Bill Spinks on April 20, 2000 (Positive Comment)

Just to reinforce what Bob has said. I had some experience with Blackboard at the ACS workshop last summer, and it is definitely useful if you are interested in doing some parts of your classes with an electronic emphasis. There are on-line samples (one free to you) at www.blackboard.com  (at least I think that is the url) for you to play with if you wish.

Some things I remember that are provided Bulletin Boards, Chat Rooms, on-line resources and notes, places to post materials (syllabi, assignments, exercises, collaborative works, peer reviews, and study quizzes, etc), posting of grades with students having access to only what you will establish, etc. Most of this is front end screens which you fill in and Blackboard does all the codlings for you....

Bill Spinks (Professor of English at Trinity University)

Message from Ken Merwin on April 20, 2000 (Positive Comment)

Asking students to submit comments for your resource is an excellent idea! Sometimes it seems that student input is lacking and it's refreshing to see you soliciting their input. I see many postings on educational list servs that never mention "student".

I have several students in my 2nd year (technical college) course that I teach over ITV between 2 satellite campuses that have really taken off on the use of Blackboard. If I had these same students for another course I know I would be able to tap some of the features such as "chat"; more threaded discussion, etc. Given that these students had no previous experience with even the use of a list serv I am darned proud of them.

I have emphasized to them that this is the type of "environment" they are likely to see for on-going professional education, etc. and a few of them may opt for moving towards their 4 (or 5) year degree where they are likely to see far more use of Internet technologies in those programs.

There has been a discussion regarding Blackboard (plus several other similar packages) over on the DEOS list serv; they maintain an archive and directions for accessing their list serv at the following:

"For browser access to DEOS-L Archives and User subscription options, go to http://lists.psu.edu/archives/deos-l.html 

DEOS-L is a service provided to the Distance Education community by The American Center for the Study of Distance Education, The Pennsylvania State University. Opinions expressed are those of DEOS-L subscribers, and do not constitute endorsement of any opinion, product, or service by ACSDE or Penn State."

Since the website you mentioned in your post, Bob, is public (versus the obvious private Blackboard sites) I am going to forward it to a small internal list serv on "Blackboard" within the Madison Area Technical College here in Wisconsin.

Best, 
Ken Merwin Technical Colleges Accounting Instructor Wisconsin
Ken Merwin [kmgraduw@CENTURYINTER.NET] 

Message from Ray Casaldi on April 20, 2000 (Positive Comment)

We began using Course Info (Blackboard) last year. At that time about 30 faculty used it to enhance their course work. Today over 300 faculty use it in many ways. Now our course catalog each semester uses a letter code for those courses that used Course Info to designate whether it is "assisted", "enhanced", or "based" on the Online Course system. "Assisted" means there is some use of the Web and the Online system for some of the materials and instruction, whereas "based" indicates that practically the entire course is offered over the Web.

Faculty reaction here at Towson, has been very favorable, as indicated by the rapid growth in use. There are however a couple of difficult parts of it, principally in the Quiz/Test assessment area...It is rather difficult to use, and this is especially cumbersome if the instructor has questions and problems already prepared that need to be "copied" to the Online course system.

With the frequent updates to the Online system, I hope they fix this and other sections to make it even easier to use.

Ray Castaldi
Castaldi, Ray [rcastaldi@TOWSON.EDU] 

I have to let my favorite tax professor, Amy Dunbar, have her say even if its not on a "Blackboard."  April 20, 2000:

I have been reading a lot about Blackboard, and I thought I would put in my 2 cents worth for WebCT. I am not familiar with Blackboard, other than hearing that it is easier to use than WebCT but not as comprehensive. WebCT is generally installed on a university server rather than the school of business server. Like Blackboard, it has a good listserv. The licensing fee is $3,000 per year for unlimited student usage. http://about.webct.com/buy/price_lic.html#pro 

I am on a technology in education panel at the Northeast Regional Meeting this week. I prepared an overview doc of WebCT, including a section that discusses my use of WebCT. http://www.sba.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/webct/usingwebct.htm  This web page is a work in progress, but the overview doc is the first link.

Despite all the critics who find it clunky, I love it. I can use html, but I much prefer having WebCT do it for me. I recently discovered the power of the WebCT calendar. I intend to use it to provide links to my notes, assignments, etc. It's wonderful! And yes, my students are having fun with WebCT, too. The student use of the bulletin board and chat room has been great. I put my weekly homework out as a "quiz." The students use the board and chat rooms to work the homework together (I want my students to work together - the exams can tell me if they learned anything). On Thursdays, they take the quiz on WebCT, and the grading is automatically done. I love it! If you like computation problems, use the short answer questions, which allow students to type in the answer. You can also use essay questions, but you have to grade them on the web. I save essays for my exams, which I still do with paper and pencil in a classroom.

This summer, one of our tax classes will be taught in Stamford and in Hartford. I will share a WebCT site with the Stamford professor, so that our students will get to learn using the same tools. The shared access feature of WebCT makes it possible for both instructors to use the site. In addition, all students can access the same homework, notes, projects, and self-tests.

My next step will be to use it for a distance learning class, but that's in the future.

Amy Dunbar [ADunbar@SBA.UCONN.EDU] 

Message from Lim Poh Gek on April 28, 2000 (Positive Comment)

Dear Prof Bob Jensen,

I am Julie from the same Nanyang Technological University as Prof Roger Debreceny. May I make use of your write-up on Blackboard Advice and Message Threads to be put in my department website for our academic staff to read?

At the same time, I like to say that I agree with Prof Roger that the weakest area for Blackboard is the Assessment area. There is a need to scroll down to read the whole question if the question exceeds 255 characters including white space (which is too limited). It cannot be timed to be released at the specific time and date of the assessment. You can only make it unavailable, and when you want to release the assessment, you make it available.

However, Prof Roger does not know it is only the free version of Blackboard CouseInfo which he is using that cannot randomize the questions. The actual version that we are getting from Blackboard Inc. has the Pool Manager which can do randomizing of questions in the assessment. However, I have yet to try out this randomizing of the items in the item bank of assessment questions as the software platform is not here yet.

On the positive note, having this free version of Blackboard CourseInfo for us to try out is a very quick way to get ourselves familiarise with it first. Also, the featured coursesites offer us free sample courses to emulate and tap ideas and to spurn new ideas on developing our online courses.

I will like to know anyone who has made use of other assessment tools implemented in the Blackboard environment, and who can share the experience with us. Has anyone tried making use of Macromedia CourseBuilder (which needs Dreamweaver Version 3) to run the assessment part of his/her online course using Blackboard?

Thank you!

With Best regards! 
Lim Poh Gek, Julie Centre for Educational Development (CED) email : pglim@ntu.edu.sg Nanyang  Technological University, Singapore
Lim Poh Gek [PGLim@ntu.edu.sg] 

Message from Lim Poh Gek on May 3, 2000 (Positive Comment)

Dear Prof Jensen,

Yes, you can make use of my comments. However, only yesterday the regional manager of Blackboard Inc., Mr Simmons, came to NTU and he told us that the latest version of Blackboard platform will have this feature of setting the dates and times of release for several assessment quizzes. Also, they are incorporating question-mark software into Blackboard at no extra charge. Also, they are going to incorporate into Blackboard the ability to type in special characters, mathematical symbols, and equations even in the Discussion threads.

Thank you for your approval to make use of your write-up.

With Best regards! 
Lim Poh Gek, 
Julie Centre for Educational Development (CED) email : pglim@ntu.edu.sg 

Note from Bob Jensen:  Question Mark Software's homepage is at http://www.questionmark.com/

Computerizing Testing, Surveys and Assessments with Question Mark! Question Mark is a powerful tool for computerizing quizzes, tests, assessments and surveys. It is easy to use by both the question designer and the candidate or participant. Question Mark saves time and money while allowing you to present questions with videos, graphics and a wide variety of styles.

How does it work?

Question Mark software allows you to create question files while the participant uses a run-time system or a Web browser to answer your questions. The participant receives the feedback that you have specified. Answers are then saved to a file for scoring and analysis.

Why two sets of hyper-links?

Question Mark operates worldwide and provides two web servers to provide easy access, one located in North America and one located in Europe. These servers contain unique and specific information for the territories they serve.

An email message from Patricia Doherty on November 9, 2000

We have "Blackboard" at BU. I do not every print any handouts, not even the syllabus.. Most students are familiar with the system. For those who might not be (occasional transfer student) I put the web address on the board. The students, by this point, are also expected to have email accounts. So, I email everyone before the semester begins to tell them where to look for the syllabus. From then on, I transmit everything except exams online. I accept online assignments, and seldom print them, because I keep them short enough that they are not hard to read on the monitor. Then, I can return them via a digital "dropbox" and never have a piece of paper to deal with. Some students still turn in written assignments, and that is fine with me.

I find email and attachments work well for answering questions, so they don't have to necessarily visit the office. They can show me what they were working on, and I can add comments to move them forward. Again, works for my hours and theirs. They can send it at 2AM when they are awake, and I can answer it at 8 AM when I am awake.

Patricia Doherty [pdoherty@BU.EDU] 

Negative Threads

Note from Bob Jensen
Since I am not yet a veteran user of Blackboard, but some limitations do bother me.  

• One limitation is that your Blackboard material cannot be located by the outside world using search engines.  You must use Trinity's HTML server for search engine discovery of your materials.  Although many instructors view the inability of search engines to find Blackboard documents an advantage, instructors who want to share materials with search engine users will find this a drawback.  Blackboard instructors can, however, post password information allowing visitors to enter the system as a "Guest."  However, this does not open up any of the materials to search engine hits from around the world.
  
  
• If you move from Trinity University to another institution, that institution may be on a different system than Blackboard.  For example, that system may have WebCT.  Some things materials are easily transported from one system to another, but certain materials such as quizzes and survey forms might have to be reworked.  However, if you were careful to avoid absolute links to a particular HTML server, your materials can be easily transported from one HTML server to another HTML server.  

Message from Germain Boer on April 18, 2000 (Negative Comment)

We have been using Blackboard here at the Owen School (at Vanderbilt) for about two years. I am not a user of it, because you have to crawl inside Blackboard and stay there to use its features. I was able to paste links to all my web pages into Blackboard, but I basically stopped using it because I did not want to develop material for Blackboard that would disappear if we stopped using it. I prefer to develop materials that will be available to my students on the web regardless of the browser they use.

If I start using Blackboard, I am a slave to it. Anything such as quizzes and exercises I develop in Blackboard (and these features are very nice) are useable only by people who are using Blackboard.

Maybe I am too old to change, but I just keep on using Frontpage to develop my web stuff.

Germain Boer [Germain.Boer@OWEN.VANDERBILT.EDU]

Note from Jensen:  Although students must use Blackboard for interactive quizzing and grade recording, others from around the world who enter the system as invited "Guests" can view documents.  Guests need not have Blackboard installed on their own computers (actually the only Blackboard software is on the Blackboard server and not on any student's computer).  However, Germain is correct in the sense that the Guests cannot take the quizzes and have their grades tabulated unless they are reclassified to Student status by the instructor.

Also note that course materials can be simultaneously placed on both the Blackboard server and on an HTML server.  It may be best to put public-access HTML documents on the HTML server so that those documents can be found by search engines of the world.  Private documents, interactive quizzes, chat room threads, and survey instruments can be put up on the password-controlled Blackboard system.

Message from Roger Debreceny on April 21, 2000 (Some Limiting and Annoying Features)

As I mentioned in an email some time ago, NTU has adopted BlackBoard CourseInfo Enterprise as the platform of choice. A prime selection criterion for NTU was the ability to integrate BB with our Oracle-based registry system.

In preparation for coordinating a course with some 400 students next semester, I have been using the free version of BlackBoard for an MBA class, along with colleagues. I would like to reinforce a number of points that have been raised in previous emails .. BlackBoard is easy to use for both faculty and students. The differing roles of instructor, grader etc,. has been well thought out. The support for student groups is esp. strong. I have also been making use of upload of zip files. BB unpacks the site and asks you which file is the entry point. This works well for, for example, complete HTML sites and HTML versions of PowerPoint presentations.

The assessment component is clearly the weakest feature -- no question or block randomisation, no feedback on individual incorrect answers in MCQs, no bulk upload (which TopClass handled *very* well) and most irritatingly of all, no HTML in the questions. No HTML in discussion items is also annoying.

I understand that Prentice-Hall has bought a share in BB and that P-H teaching materials will be brought to BB very soon.

Roger Debreceny [rogerd@NETBOX.COM] 

Reply to Roger from Barbara McCartney

Dear Roger

I have spent the last 18 mths teaching large and small classes with WebCT and found it clunky but useful in V1.3 but with upgrades to V2 and V2.1 I have finally concluded that this product is a nightmare and I wonder what goulish excitement is pending in V3. I have been quietly experimenting with Blackboard using a free course and at this stage I prefer Blackboard and your comments have reinforced this view. Nevertheless I wonder what happens when institutions like my own are somewhat financially locked into a 'good' product which then becomes a more of a problem than a solution. Generally and only out of this experience I am wondering if Universities should hold off making major commitments to any one product eg Blackboard etc at this stage rather than give one provider monopoly status. Instead it may be better to concentrate on infrastructure which would support multiple courseware products. I believe this is happening at UWS. 
Regards
Barbara McCartney [bmccartn@METZ.UNE.EDU.AU] 

Reply to Barbara from Roger