The theme of this year’s Blackboard Users’
Conference, held on 7th & 8th January at Durham University Business School, was “Learning From Failure”, which was suggested by delegates from
last year’s conference. The keynote was delivered by Eric Stoller, who
addressed the issues of digital identity and failure on social media.
Blackboard themselves also addressed the
conference, although they called their talk “Reflections on a shared journey”
rather than examining the concept of learning from failure. They examined the
changes that the system has undergone over the years and the needs of
Blackboard today, including a resilient server, trained staff, backups and
appropriate network access. These days the system is “mission critical” and
users have higher expectations.
A Sessions: Is There A Place for Blackboard Collaborate in Blended Learning Design – Matt Cornock, University of York
This session looked at whether Blackboard
Collaborate could be useful in blended learning – learning that mixes face to
face and distance learning. It covered the issues that can be experienced with
Blackboard Collaborate including loss of sound quality, connection reliability,
issues with the launcher and whiteboard interaction. MC discussed a case study
in which students on a creative writing programme used Collaborate to try and
replicate the face to face environment. It was found that this didn’t work as
the online environment could not facilitate the spontaneity and natural
atmosphere of a face to face environment. Also, remote students by this time
had already formed their own social groups for mutual support so they did not
need to approach these sessions in the same way.
However, Collaborate has been proved to be
useful for such functions as library tutorials and support, as well as group
work, some individual tuition, teleconferencing and careers workshops.
B Sessions: Designing A Pre-Induction Course: Mistakes, Issues and Success – Steve Dawes, Regent’s University London
This session examined the issues faced by
staff at Regent’s University London when designing a pre-induction course for
students. The course was designed to streamline the induction process for
students which can often be daunting.
The course was designed to be a simple
student-centric platform with a single login so that all students could access
it even if they did not yet have their own personal login details. It focused
on the key information that students would need when arriving at university,
including information about accommodation, visas and study skills. The students
were not taught how to use Blackboard – it was hoped that they would be able to
pick it up through completing this simple course.
The homepage was designed to resemble the
University website so that students grew familiar with the structure of the
website. There was only one course link to click on to get to the information
they needed. There was an element of interactivity: e.g. a checklist entitled
“Are You Ready?” consisting of a series of yes or no questions checking if
students had everything they would need. There was also an interactive map of
the campus.
987 of the trial students completed the
final survey. The most popular elements were the introduction and the “Are You
Ready?” questionnaire. In general there was a good student uptake with positive
feedback, and a reduction in emails to student support. This was done for the
Jan rollout and will be improved for the September cohort.
Future potential improvements include polls,
Collaborate sessions, media content and group inductions.
C Sessions: Growing Pains: Preparing For A Teenage VLE – Andy White, University of Cumbria
This session charted the University of Cumbria’s
use of Blackboard as their VLE platform since 2003. At the time, study was
mostly campus based but videos would be filmed and posted out to distance
learners. Students also had to send paper-based submissions through the post.
Over time there was a move to integrate Bb
usernames and passwords with University ones, and they got the licensed mobile
site in 2012. In 2014, Bb was listed by the University as “mission critical”
for disaster recovery.
This year it was decided that every
programme should have a presence on Blackboard. A benchmarking exercise was
introduced in order to check whether courses were active, if they contained any
broken links, or had any hidden content. An annual review is now planned to
ensure that high standards are maintained.
D Sessions: Working With Students as Partners to Help You Identify and Learn from Your Mistakes: Developing a Pre-Arrival Study Skills Course for all Undergraduates – Sam Nolan, Eleanor Loughlin, Malcolm Murray, Elaine Tan and Jacquie Scollen, Durham University
After it was suggested that students wanted
more contact before arriving at university, it was decided at Durham that a
pre-arrival study skills course should be developed. A short 2-week course was
trialled last summer, covering topics such as preparing for academic study,
independent learning and digital literacy. A videographer was employed to film
staff and current students talking about relevant topics. Other areas such as
library services were also explored. The course will be rolled out to all
students in the next academic year.
The course contains information about
coming to Durham, preparing for arrival and transitioning to independent
learning. It also contains information
about classes and reading materials, as well as support services such as
library services. To date, the course has received 103, 576 views. Student
feedback suggests that those using the course feel more prepared for their
arrival at Durham.
The presentation explored mistakes the
staff felt they had made and the steps they plan to take to rectify these. For
instance, they felt that they should have involved students as consultants from
the start of the project, and made risk management a priority earlier on.
E Sessions: The SPECTRE of Blackboard Design – James Leahy, Regent’s University London
This session looked at the syndrome of “Persistent
Empty Courses” at Regent’s University – the problem of lecturers not making
good use of Blackboard courses to enhance learning even though the offline
course was excellent. In this example, the presenter added banners, logos and
videos to the course to demonstrate the potential of online materials.
F Sessions: Establishing High Stakes Computer-Based Testing through Blackboard As A Supported Service: An Institutional Perspective On Key Challenges and Lessons Learned – Richard Walker and Andy Parkinson, University of York
This session looked at the growing use of
VLEs for formal assessment and explored the ways in which staff at the University
of York have coped with the challenges of implementing this. Exams on the VLE
must be intuitive, flawless and fit for purpose, with a dedicated
infrastructure and automated marking.
Staff were aware of possible issues that
could arise, including loss of student data and multiple workstation failure.
They took steps to minimize this, including creating separate exam accounts for
students.
Some of the issues encountered included
students being sent to the wrong rooms, and ongoing challenges with
timetabling. One issue involved the randomization of questions – some students
were shown the harder, essay-style questions first while others were given
multiple-choice questions – this could be seen as unfair, so the issue was
later rectified.
G Sessions: How I Have So Far Failed To Create A Fully Accessible VLE – Al Holloway, University of Northampton
Al Holloway’s presentation explored how he
has tried to create a fully accessible VLE, but this has been difficult without
the wholehearted support of all staff. Accessibility issues include Blackboard
themes and layouts, video content, recorded lectures, documents and content
authoring, and different browsers. Some
staff responded to his requests to look at making their material more
accessible, but others made less of an effort. He emphasized the importance of
gaining support from key stakeholders, and suggests implementing a method to
audit accessibility.
H Sessions: Electronic Submission on Large and Complex Courses – Chris Boon, City College Norwich
This course looked at ways to manage the
Grade Centre in Blackboard given the widespread use of electronic submission.
These methods including splitting the class into groups, creating categories,
and using Smart Views.
I found the conference really useful, and it was good to meet other people who work with VLEs. I picked up some useful pointers and learned a good deal.
