Bb World ’06.006: Blackboard Academic Suite Roadmap
March 10, 2006
This session was Blackboard’s chance to tell us all about what’s coming. Lots of marketing, a little information, and not too much about a timeline. Let me start by saying that I’m getting a little tired of everyone piling onto the Web 2.0 concept. The session started by explaining that we were moving from eLearning 1.0 to 2.0.
| eLearning 1.0 | eLearning 2.0 | Blackboard Beyond |
| Platform Adoption | Extending the Platform | Centralized learning objects repository |
| Courses | Social Networks (beyond a single institution) | Inter-institutional communication faculty and students by discipline via scholar.com |
| Education Segments (i.e. features and functions) | Lifelong Learning | Centralized (hosted) portfolios |
| Inputs (uploading stuff) | Outcomes | Inter-institutional data repositories for anonymous benchmarking |
The Blackboard Beyond Initiative is the company’s effort to build specific services to address the “2.0†features eLearning needs. To extend the platform, Blackboard plans to have a centrally hosted learning objects repository that can be accessed from the Learning system. Clients will be able to pull down learning objects into their Bb courses or to post learning objects so that other Bb courses can use them. For social networks, they plan to use the scholar.com web site to allow faculty and students of a particular discipline to communicate with their counterparts from other Bb schools. To me, scholar.com is the most compelling feature of the Beyond initiative – I think it has the most potential to transform learning. For lifelong learning, Bb plans to centrally host portfolios so lifelong learners can continue to build their portfolios as they move from institution to institution. Not bad, but since we don’t have the Bb Content system, this isn’t a service we’ll see. Finally the outcomes service will allow institutions to anonymously share institutional data so other schools can benchmark themselves. I suspect this will be a tie-in to the Caliper application whenever it is released, so again, this feature isn’t one I expect to use.
Matthew Pittinsky said these four efforts were only the beginning. The plan is to use Blackboard’s Idea Exchange, a gathering of 100-150 clients, to shape these future services and any others that might support eLearning 2.0. Just before I went to San Diego, I signed up for the Idea Exchange. So far all I’ve got is a neat little ribbon that I wore on my conference badge, but in time I hope to have an ear and a voice in the discussions for Blackboard’s future direction.
As for product highlights, here are some of the details:
- A self-testing capability, where students can take assessments without impacting the gradebook. It’s possible for the instructor to know the score along with the student, but things can be configured so only the student sees the score.
- New multiple time features that allow students to take assessments more than once. Scores can be average, highest, lowest, last…
- The WYSIWYG editor will work in Safari. I may actually turn this feature on.
- Blogs that can be published inside or outside of Blackboard. I’ll have to see the implementation of this. I hope RSS and enclosures are supported for external blogs.
- Roles have been modified so that observers can be linked to more than one student. This could allow advisors to see how their advisees are doing in the online portions of their classes.
- An early warning system that alerts instructors or system administrators, generating e-mail inside the system or out. Not really sure what triggers the warnings – if anyone reading this caught that part, please leave a comment to explain this feature.
- Changes to the Content system include evaluation portfolios and customization within the portfolio system.
- Blackboard is fully internationalized, comes with 10 languages and a language editor for anyone who wants to build more languages into the system. You can run multiple languages simultaneously on the system and there are three different modes for viewing each language.
- Blackboard is now integrated into Sharepoint – the system connect to Sharepoint and Active Directory.
- Blackboard’s new Backpack application will sync with the server to take content offline. Someday it will sync back up as well.
- Caliper, yet to be released, is an evaluation and assessment system designed to link learning objectives to programs and even course content. You will be able to track how students are meeting objectives.
- Blackboard now has an open beta process, where they release early copies of their upcoming versions for testing in real environments. Personally I will always wait for the first service pack before I consider installing a new version. Features are nice, stability is crucial.
As for Building Blocks, they talked about the Copyright Clearinghouse building block, which allows faculty to get copyright clearance for items they wish to post in the course. It’s not a bad Building Block, but it requires institutional roles so you have to have the Community system to use it. Blackboard also talked about LAMS, a graphical sequencer for course content. It looks good, but we don’t have many faculty who use Blackboard’s sequencing capabilities.
Blackboard wants to extend its certificate programs. Right now there’s a program whereby faculty can be “Blackboard Certified.†In the future Bb may have a System Administrator Certificate. There’s also a Blackboard for Dummies book coming next month.
The weekend approaches. Somewhere between creating a project web site and team evaluations, I hope to catch up with more entries from Bb World 06. If you're still reading, thanks for your patience.
Bb World ’06.005: Benchmarks and Maturity Models for e-Learning
March 8, 2006
Brigham Young University has been doing their homework on how Blackboard is being used. By mining the information in Blackboard they can tell us that 3/4 of the school’s courses are in Blackboard, the system contains 360 GB of course content, it receives over 700,000 hits a day, and in the Fall of 2005 there were 2 million quizzes. 2 million for Fall term alone!
They wanted a method for monitoring Blackboard’s “vital signs†– a way of being sure the system was healthy and that use of it was growing. In addition, they sat down with stakeholders – anyone they could find who had a vested interest in the system (or who should have an interest) and conducted some qualitative feedback on Blackboard.
The vital signs to track?
- Usage: how much is the system used and how? Which features are being used? This data was easy to grab since it comes from the system. BYU was able to see which tools were getting lots of use and which weren’t. This affected their outreach, since they could promote tools that weren’t being used but also to promote alternate uses of popular tools.
- Satisfaction: Over the course of three terms, BYU conducted brief surveys of students and faculty. Students reported in increasing numbers (75%, 75% and 86% for the past 3 semesters) that Blackboard was easy to learn & use. Faculty, however, reported in increasing numbers (18%, 16% and 28%) that Blackboard is difficult to learn and use. The presenters said there could be several reasons for the uptick in difficulty.
- Efficiency: Monitoring faculty and student efficiency allows them to help everyone be more efficient in teaching & learning overall. Through surveys they tracked opinions of whether Blackboard has increased their workloads (students: 14%, 23% and 25%; faculty: 41%, 26%, and 24%) with an eye on developing training (more for faculty than students) on how to be more efficient in Blackboard.
- Stability: BYU had significant stability issues (with Assessments) in their second semester of tracking information. They’ve moved to the ASP model as a result and things are working better now. They rightly describe stability as the #1 vital sign to track.
- Knowledge: They also tracked whether faculty and students feel as if they know how to use Blackboard, with overall positive results.
Next steps include revisions to the vital signs to monitor, as well as plans for a cross-institutional study. I almost jumped at this one, but I want Richmond to get our statistics together before we join into a larger review.
More information can be found on their Center for Instructional Design web site. The presentation can be found on Jonathan Mott’s page (scroll down to the Presentations section).
More Bb World 06 Summaries Coming…
March 3, 2006
Today's my day to catch up in the office, but I'll be adding more summaries of sessions from Blackboard World '06 over the next few days. Thanks to Greg Ritter for pointing readers of Blackboard's Educate Innovate blog to my blog!
Bb World ’06.004: Listening Session: Blackboard Client Support
March 2, 2006
This conference is my first Blackboard conference, and the first anyone from Richmond has attended in four years. One of my big goals in attending the conference was to get a better line on where Blackboard was overall, and where they’re going. As a result I have planned on attending several of Blackboard’s “Listening Sessions.â€
First up was the Listening Session on Blackboard Client Support. I should say that I’ve been impressed with our support from Blackboard, especially with Randy Min, who was our TSA for a while this past year. My purpose in attending this session was more to get a level of how everyone else felt about client support and what issues they had that could become issues for me.
Craig Chanoff, Blackboard’s VP for Client Support, presided. He started out with a brief presentation looking at the problems from a year ago and reporting on where they are now. While they still get plenty of technical issue calls, they’re also starting to get calls about things like capacity planning and faculty training. Chanoff sees this as a sign that things overall are better. He also pointed to their implementation of Google Search on Blackboard’s support site, and mentioned that soon the search tool will scan all of the different list archives, not just ASU’s primary Blackboard list.
Quality Assurance processes are better now than before. Version 7 went through six months of beta testing at schools before it was released. Chanoff did say that he was disappointed not to have made progress with browser compatibility. He offered that WebCT has some nice features for browser support, so perhaps we’ll see something in time.
Craig also talked about Blackboard’s new Enhancement Requests process. They received 500 requests in 2005. Of those, 25% were gradebook related, 30% pertained to the GUI, and 45% were technical (relating to e-mail, APIs and so on). 75% of the requests were accepted or flagged for future development efforts. Not too bad.
As for the Listening part of the session. Here are some of the items that came up:
- Blackboard’s Internal Knowledge – Blackboard seems to know things that we don’t, and we can only get the information if we ask the right question of the right TSA. Craig said that they currently have 2 knowledge bases in the client support area, one of which is a wiki. Blackboard may make the wiki available to clients, flagging some items so that only the Bb staff can see, but opening up lots of other items to the rest of us.
- Pushing fixes to clients. Oftentimes we have to hit a problem, diagnose, and call in to technical support only to find that it’s a known issue that’s come out since the last release. Craig said that as of version 7 a list of known issues is available on their support site. He added that as of today, clients can not only subscribe to news alerts (RSS feeds) from Behind the Blackboard, but they can subscribe to RSS feeds for case communication.
- Craig pushed the Blackboard WebEx site as a place for clients to learn more. They’re working to put more events out there for us, so keep visitng the Blackboard WebEx site.
- Blackboard uses Peoplesoft’s CRM and HR products for client support. Just so we know.
- John Fontaine spoke about how development is working to improve the quality of what we get. He pointed to the changes they’ve made with the Gradebook, since high-stakes assessments essentially fail in 6.2 (our current version!). In 6.3 it’s better, but it’s fixed for the most part in 7.0. They’re currently investigating running multiple JVMs on the system to accommodate the huge amount of resources necessary for assessments. They’re also looking at making multiple attempts at assessments possible. As a workaround for clients having problems with assessments, John suggested going to a question-by-question format for the test or quiz, since all-at-once requires so much more memory.
- Another client asked about being able to grade a single question for all students at once. Fontaine is interested in this, but it didn’t seem like anyone was working on it now.
A good session overall. Clients aren’t frustrated, Blackboard is making progress, and I think Richmond is in a good place with our systems, UR Operations & DBA support and our tech support from Blackboard.
Bb World ’06.003: Keynote: Malcolm Gladwell
March 2, 2006
Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, was our keynote speaker. He shared several entertaining stories of tipping point moments – those moments when someone does something that transforms. The big message was that we’re on the verge of a tipping point with eLearning. We just need someone to come along with a transformational application of systems like Blackboard. It’ll be cheap and will require putting several disparate pieces together that none of us see today, but when it happens it will be transformational.
Not sure I agree here. While most of us would like a transformational embrace of the resources we provide, not all changes are transformational. The academy in particular is slow to embrace change because the current methods of teaching have been adjusted and proven over time.
He focused on Connectors – people who know people from a large number of social circles. Most of us have work circles, home circles and maybe two or three other circles depending on our interests. Connectors have 10 or more circles, and they’re the ones you want to find when you’re trying to get the word out. They know people you don’t, and what’s more important – people know them and listen to them. Paul Revere was a connector – Gladwell highlights him in his book. While Paul Revere rode in one direction to alert the populace, William Dawes rode in the other. Revere’s towns raised the alarm and were ready when the British showed up. Dawes, who didn’t know people the way Revere did, failed to reach the people who would gather the troops, and the British rolled through those towns.
He also explained Mavens – people who know everything (instead of everyone), and who are driven to share the good things they know. Gladwell’s brother is a computer Maven, helping him to buy the right computer so he doesn’t have to understand the world of MHz and GB. Mavens are the ones who keep grocery stores in line. Stores have learned that people buy stuff when you put a “Consistently Low Price!†sign on everything. So what keeps stores from setting high prices and putting “Consistently Low Price!†signs out there? Mavens. Mavens know when a price is low, when a bargain is good or bad, and if you’re not behaving nicely they’ll tell everyone they know.
All in all a pleasant keynote. And I’ll keep thinking about what it is we need to tip eLearning, but I’m not convinced it’s a tip-able thing.
Bb World ’06.002: Notes from the Exhibit Floor
March 1, 2006
For the first break I braced myself for a Blackboard session on what’s coming in Blackboard. This was one of those sessions where 10-20 people sit in chairs at the booth. The big deal is that the Discussion Board is almost completely redone. Faculty and students will now be able to search in the Discussion Board within a date range, across forums. Peer review can be set up for forums so TAs or students can moderate or grade. It’s possible to set up e-mail notification of posts to a Bb Discussion Board (note to self: e-mail from the server is going to exponentially increase), and forums can now have “controlled releaseâ€, i.e. faculty can create a forum and make it available between certain dates just like other Blackboard content.
Blackboard has also integrated a discussion grader into the Discussion Board. This will replace the Building Block we’re currently using but the good news is the new discussion grader was deployed with the assistance of the folks who built the Building Block.
Break food was not good, but that’s no surprise. On to the next session.
Bb World ’06.001: SQL for Blackboard System Administrators
March 1, 2006
Continental breakfast at the Manchester Grand Hyatt is $19. $19! I hadn’t yet registered for the conference so I decided to register then check the Marriott’s buffet price. Perhaps I missed it somewhere on the Bb World site, but they’re serving breakfast in the San Diego Conference Center, so my anger with the Hyatt’s pricing actually helped save Richmond a bit of money.
I was a little late getting to the first session of the conference, but I managed to get a seat towards the back of the room. One of the nice things at the conference is that rather than provide just rows of chairs, Blackboard has long tables where you can put out your stuff. I promptly pulled out my PowerBook and looked for the wireless network. There wasn’t any! My only option was to pay $24.00 a day to the convention center. In disbelief I checked the conference program, where I learned that if I sit on the ground within 50 feet of the e-mail stations, I can pick up a small wireless network set up for the conference.
Blackboard, if you’re reading, please fix this for next year. It’s a technology conference, for Pete’s sake. And you have the means to make this happen. This is the first conference I’ve attended in years (more than 3) that didn’t have a wireless network available to all.
Glen Parker’s presentation was a good start. He’d made his presentation slides available before the conference. I shared them with Betsy, who told me she hoped I’d attend his session to hear more. The slides are available online.
Here are some of the things I heard that weren’t on the slides:
- Glen likes the Activity Accumulator information because it provides a better query interface (SQL) than looking at the system logs. We should understand how this information is stored for those times we want to know what a person was doing in the system when a problem occurred.
- Gradebook Main stores student attempts on gradebook items. The qti field contains XML information about the attempt.
- Gradebook scores, along with when they were recorded are kept in the Attempts table, not Gradebook Main.
- Glen presented four problems in need of a SQL solution. Each of the four examples is a roadmap to most any other query you might want to make against the system. The introductory slide of features you can query is based on version 6.2; for 6.3 it would be a much longer list.
- His Student Performance Assistant query was used for a Building Block that shows faculty how many times a student has accessed the course over time.
- USF keeps a year’s worth of data in the Activity Accumulator. I think this is a default. We should check to see how long we keep our data.
