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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going. As a result I have planned on attending several of Blackboard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Listening Sessions.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\n<\/p>\n
\nFirst up was the Listening Session on Blackboard Client Support. I should say that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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.\n<\/p>\n
\nCraig Chanoff, Blackboard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s support site, and mentioned that soon the search tool will scan all of the different list archives, not just ASU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s primary Blackboard list.\n<\/p>\n
\nQuality 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see something in time.\n<\/p>\n
\nCraig also talked about Blackboard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.\n<\/p>\n
\nAs for the Listening part of the session. Here are some of the items that came up:<\/p>\n
\nA good session overall. Clients aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading