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What is Blackboard?

 Blackboard image

The Blackboard Portal

CSUH 's History with Blackboard

Timeline

Contacts

What is Blackboard?

CSUH has acquired a set of web course utilities called Blackboard. Blackboard is a comprehensive and flexible e-Learning software platform that delivers a course management system, a customizable institution-wide portal and online communities. Students and faculty access these utilities through a portal web site that also provides individual task management and calendaring utilities as well as institution-wide communications.

The Blackboard Portal

The Blackboard portal provides course content management tools, course communication and collaboration tools, virtual chat, white board/threaded discussion, web-based email, community management, a common CSUH look and feel, institution-wide content sharing, campus online communities, and the ability to scale from providing minimal syllabus information to providing a gamut of online capabilities.
  • The portal serves as a virtual gateway to the campus, providing links to web registration, fee payment on the web, information about a student's grades, financial aid, and accounting balance, as well as extending the classroom setting and enhancing the quality of education and campus community. The learning experience is transformed into an interactive community of learners, feeling more like Socrates' agora than the traditional 20th century classroom.
  • An easy-to-use interface provides instructors and students with the tools to create, enhance, and customize the online teaching and learning environment. Some course information can be public (syllabi), but "handouts" can be protected by Blackboard's security.
  • Student navigation through the course sites can be tracked so faculty can determine what documents are accessed, at what times they're accessed, and how frequently they're accessed.
  • Starting in Fall 2001, every student will have a customizable web portal and there will be links from that portal to a Blackboard page for each section in which the student is enrolled. Assistance for faculty will be provided by the Faculty Development Office and the Instructional Technology Center.
  • The portal will be available 7x24 and all data will be encrypted.
  • Blackboard will provide an infrastructure which will integrate with the current SIS+ student system and, in the future, with PeopleSoft.

CSUH 's History with Blackboard

California State University, East Bay has been involved with Blackboard since March 2000. At that point we began a migration from Web Course in a Box to Blackboard Level I and the evaluation of the Blackboard line of products. In July of 2000 we purchased a Level II license and began development work on a two server configuration for introduction of our initial classes in January 2001 utilizing the Blackboard Portal interface. Between January 2001 and June 2001, based on individual faculty requests, we mounted approximately 150 courses on Blackboard. In June 2001 we signed a Level III license with Blackboard with the intent to provide a course shell for every course in our schedule of classes by September 2001. We are on target for that goal.

Beginning in September 2001, all course offerings had an automatically created course shell mounted on Blackboard that is automatically assigned to the faculty member teaching that course, automatically populated with enrolled students from our Student Information System (SIS+) and automatically updated on a daily basis via a snapshot interface. All shells are available with the Announcements, Communication Tools, Discussion Forums and Tools course buttons active. Instructors are not required to use the course shells but if they choose, they can add additional buttons and add material to whatever extent they wish.

This project provides a campus-wide electronic community and communication environment for faculty and students as well as a course management system with a pre-made, populated course shell for every course. Course shells can be used independently of the course material and without the involvement of the faculty, however it is anticipated that a large number of faculty will take advantage of the system to provide course material online for their students.

T i m e l i n e

Date Range Activity
March 2000 - June 2000 Original Purchase of Blackboard License Level I. Review and study to determine the feasibility of using Blackboard as a replacement to Web Course In A Box, which was purchased by Blackboard with further development stopped.
June 2000 - October 2000 Purchase of Level II license adding the Portal capabilities to the Course Management System. Purchase of dedicated server for running the Blackboard server. Purchase two Sun 450's running Solaris, one for the application and one for the database supporting the application.
October 2000 Installed Blackboard 5.0 on the application server and Oracle 8i on the database server. Began development of a project plan to introduce the application to the campus during Winter 2001 quarter. Identified a group of faculty and courses we would like to use as test beds during Winter 2001. Introduced the Blackboard project to the campus community through the Deans++ meeting, Academic Senate and Faculty Development.
November 2000 - December 2000 Faculty begin working on developing courses for Winter 2001. Emphasis on test machine status; not a stable environment. Having trouble with the application processes.
January 2001 Introduce first classes on Blackboard. Approximately 50 courses and 2000 students participate during Winter 2001 quarter. Responses are positive.
February 2001 Upgrade to 5.0.1 to resolve ongoing program problems specifically with the portal system.
February 2001 - May 2001 Investigate the use of the Blackboard Level II portal system as a campus portal for students. Decision made to bring Level III up for Fall 2001 quarter.
April 2001 Hold level III planning meetings with Blackboard and groups on campus.
May 2001 Hold the 2 day kickoff meeting with Blackboard to finalize plans for Fall 2001 implementation
June 2001 Set Summer dates for Fall 2001 implementation.
June 2001 Decision made to shut down Web Course in A Box effective September 1, 2001. No WCB courses will be offered beginning Fall 2001 quarter.
June 2001 Begin migration of Web Course in A Box courses to Blackboard. Priority one is WCB courses being taught in the Fall. Faculty are notified and asked to verify they wish to use the materials from WCB.
July 2001 Snapshot development for the uploading of student accounts and enrollments takes place. Working with the registar's office a series of test scenarios are being developed to make sure the snapshots account for all possible actions students will take in relation to their courses.
July 2001 Faculty are notified accounts have been generated for their use and how to receive the account information.
August 2001 Final testing on the student account and enrollment snapshots takes place on the test server.
August 2001 A course shell for all course sections being offered Fall 2001 is set up on the Blackboard application server. These courses are set up with the Announcements, Communication, Discussion Forum and Tools modules active; an initial announcement and automatically available. Faculty were assigned as instructor to those classes they are listed under on the SAIL system.
August 2001 Blackboard Application Server upgraded to 5.5.1. This upgrade addresses some problems with the mail system as well as the assessment tools.
September 2001 Installation of Course Copy API enabling faculty to copy their course materials from one existing course to another. Waiting for release of the API - its currently in Beta.
September1 - 15, 2001 The remaining Level III modules are installed on the application server. The Student account and enrollment snapshots are installed and tested on the local server.
September 16 - 25, 2001 Using the SAIL system all courses on the local Blackboard server will be populated with registered students. Accounts will be generated using a pre-set scheme. Random testing of enrollments will be run against the datawarehouse lists.
September 27, 2001 Fall 2001 courses begin with Blackboard functionality.
October 2001 The course creation and faculty assignment snapshots are tested on the test server and installed on the local server.
October 2001 A number of customizations to the application and the portal are installed on the CSUH machine (see list for customizations requested and their status.)
January 2002 Blackboard system fully functional.
January 2002 - June 2002 Further assessment and evaluation to determine additional customizations and revision of the procedures are completed.
September 2003 BB Version 5.5 to 6.0 Upgrade Project.
A new version of Blackboard was implemented for Fall 2003 and the migration from the current version to version 6 took place.
June 2004 Blackboard Application Server upgraded to 6.1.5.5-AppPack1. The major areas of improvement in version 6.1 are: Text Box Editor, Spell-Check, Quick Edit allows faster access to content editing, Auto Announcement Generation in Assessments, Blackboard Messages, and Glossary Tool.

 

Contacts

Roger Parker: Director, Media & Technology Services

Terry Smith: Coordinator

Arlene Lee: Blackboard Consulting Support

Bonnie Correia: Blackboard Consulting Support

Bernie Salvador: Blackboard Training Classes

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    Media and Technology Services, California State University, East Bay (510) 885-3692 Media & Technology Services Email