save time and money with blackboard collaborate
TRANSCRIPT
Save Time and Money with Blackboard Collaborate
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“In just one year, by holding virtual meetings and professional development
sessions with Blackboard Collaborate, we saved $117,979 in mileage
reimbursement costs, eliminated 7,205 out-of-office hours, traveled
233,622 fewer miles, and reduced our carbon footprint by eliminating
237,710 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere.”
Mike CaldwellDirector of Supervision and Development, Idaho Digital Learning Academy
Though the recession officially ended in June
2009 according to The National Bureau of
Economic Research, the economy still slogged
along in 2010, negatively affecting the funding
for and budgets of public and private educational
institutions across the globe. As schools of all
shapes, sizes, and missions struggled to find ways
to tighten their belts, many found that utilizing
the full breadth of Blackboard Collaborate’s
collaboration software across their entire schools
not only enabled them to save time, money,
and even the environment, but in several cases,
actually earn additional revenue.
The California Community Colleges System is
the nation’s largest higher education system,
boasting 2.9 million students and 85,000 faculty
at 112 campuses. In the early 2000’s, the system –
in a state now known for its financial woes – took
a critical look at its budget and realized it was
spending millions of dollars annually on meetings.
After all, nearly 100,000 faculty and staff were
on committees that required members to drive
throughout the entire state to attend meetings.
System officials quickly realized it could turn to
web conferencing to save time and money while
helping them ‘go green’ at the same time.
Save Time and Money with Blackboard Collaborate
Since 2003, the California Community
Colleges System has conducted more
than 110,000 live online meetings via
Blackboard Collaborate, thereby saving
millions of dollars of gas and mileage
reimbursements. And that doesn’t even
touch on the millions of dollars of saved
productivity by eliminating time lost out-
of-office driving to meeting locations
across the state.
Interestingly, the system also recognized
the full breadth of Blackboard Collaborate
technologies and began to implement virtual
classrooms and asynchronous voice tools
into its campuses’ online courses. By utilizing
collaborative technologies, it not only increased
its investment by meeting and teaching live
online, but it also retained more than 10,000
students annually, thereby not losing those
valuable tuition dollars, according to Blaine
Morrow, Project Director of CCC Confer and 3C
Media Solutions. 1
A similar model of conducting live
online statewide staff and professional
development meetings in lieu of travel
is seen daily in Idaho. Traditionally, K-12
teachers throughout Idaho had to drive up
to eight hours one-way to participate in
professional development seminars. But
with state budget shortfalls in both 2008
and 2009, the state mandated that travel
time had to be reduced and therefore turned
to Idaho Digital Learning Academy’s (IDLA)
Blackboard Collaborate license to help meet
live online. In addition to saving dollars on
travel, gas, and time out of the office, online
meetings also increased attendance.
1 Morrow, Blaine, “CC Confer: Centralized Web Conferencing Service for 112 Community Colleges.” MEET: Modeling Effective Education Technology Meeting. 2010.
2 Caldwell, Mike, “Taking Wimba Classroom to the Next Level: Engaging Learners with Interactive Facilitation Strategies.” Wimba Connect 2010 User Conference. March 2010.
Idaho Live ImpactAccording to Mike Caldwell, Director of Supervision and Development, Idaho Digital Learning Academy of IDLA, Idaho Live (its branded version of Blackboard Collaborate) has a statewide impact on:
•ReducingTravelCosts
•IncreasingOpportunityandAccesstoinformation
•IncreasingProfessionalDevelopmentopportunities statewide
•Reducinglostinstructionalandadministrative time
IDLA survey data provides quantitative confirmation of Caldwell’s perception of savings. By holding live online meetings and professional development sessions in 2009, the state of Idaho:
•Saved$117,979inmileagereimbursementcosts*
*Additionalcostsavingssuchasovernightaccommodations, meals, etc. not included
•Eliminated7,205“outofoffice”hours
•Saved233,622travelmiles
•Saved11,681gallonsofgasoline
•Trainedmorethan1,000teachersthroughout Idaho and an additional 1,364 have viewed archives
•Had100%participationofIdahoregionsinonline meetings
•Reduceditscarbonfootprintbyeliminating237,710 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere2
4
First Lady Michelle Obama can even attest.Within the United States Department of Interior (DOI),
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses Blackboard
Collaborate to conduct meetings and deliver training
and live broadcasts to remote field staff. Using this
technology has increased communication, reduced travel
costs and decreased the agency’s carbon footprint.
From the comfort of their own offices, in Fall 2009, DOI
employees were able to use Blackboard Collaborate to
watch speeches by Mrs. Obama, Secretary of the Interior
Ken Salazaar, and government biologists working on
conservation issues such as climate change, endangered
species recovery, and the white-nose syndrome that is
decimating bat populations in the Northeast.
Blackboard Collaborate can also save time and money
for institutions that regularly hold their own conferences
but no longer have the resources to do so in a face-
to-face environment. Due to budget cuts in 2009, Troy
University (AL) sought to transition its annual faculty
development conference online. It decided to utilize
Blackboard Collaborate to replicate the usual face-to-
face conference, and also thought holding an online
conference would be a clever means of simultaneously
exposing virtual classroom technology to all its
faculty worldwide. Thus, Troy University eColloquium
Conference organizers estimate they saved $22,000
normally needed to host the conference face-to-face,
that it actually increased total attendance from 150
persons to 506, and even increased the average per-
session attendance from 25-50 participants to 130, all
while exposing this new technology to hundreds of its
faculty and staff across the globe.
“We saved tens of thousands of dollars and more
than doubled our usual attendance by holding our
conference online with Blackboard Collaborate.
Providing professional development and training for
our global faculty has never been easier. Whether our
instructors are situated in Spain, Southeast Asia or the
United States, Blackboard Collaborate allows Troy to
reach out with top-notch professional development
and the latest in training,” says Gayle Nelson, Director
of Instructional Design and Educational Technology at
Troy University.3
Similar positive results have been seen at numerous
other institutions, such as the University of Georgia
(UGA), which, like Troy University, transitioned a faculty
development conference online that previously met
on-campus for years. Janet Sylvia of the instructional
technology department at UGA’s Cooperative Extension
3 Nelson Gayle and Scarborough, Lee, “Taking Troy’s eColloquium Online.” Wimba Connect 2010 User Conference. March 23, 2010.
4 Sylvia, Janet, “Wimba Study Break: Increasing Revenue and Enrollments via Collaborative Technology.” The Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series (webcast). March 9, 2010.
5Authorunknown,“Howdoesavirtualconferencework?”OnlineConferencefor Music Therapy (blog). September 2, 2010.
“We saved tens of thousands of dollars and
more than doubled our usual attendance by
holding our conference online with Blackboard
Collaborate”
Gayle NelsonDirector of Instructional Design and Educational Technology, Troy University.
Save Time and Money with Blackboard Collaborate
Department says, “I don’t think you could even begin to compute the savings if
more than 700 people from 143 counties had to drive to Atlanta instead of doing
this online, when you take into account all of time savings and gas savings.’4
But beyond holding conferences for professional meeting or training purposes,
institutions worldwide that serve the greater good can too enjoy cost effective
virtual meetings while proving to be an invaluable asset to humanity. This is
perhaps best seen by the Online Conference for Music Therapy, an annual
virtual conference that not only saves its attendees thousands of dollars by not
having to travel to an on-site location, but also helps children with disabilities
and special needs who now rely on music therapy to help them heal.5
In addition to saving money and time, Blackboard Collaborate software actually
enables many schools to earn money and create additional revenue streams.
“One thing [Blackboard Collaborate] has brought is more revenue,” said Gary
Shouppe of Columbus State University (GA). “As a result of the increase in
enrollments, we’ve gotten more funding for technology. Recently we were able
to take the money we earned from the new students in our online program and
were able to purchase new laptop computers for our instructors in our online
program. We bought flip cameras and digital cameras for them to use too, and
we purchased each faculty member (70) an iPad in the College of Education
andHealthProfessions.It’sbeenquiteabitoffun.”6
Additionally, West Virginia University had used Blackboard Collaborate since
2004 to teach a diverse array of subjects such as Nursing, Foreign Languages,
Marketing, and Special Education and had therefore seen many tangible benefits
such as significant cost savings by transitioning from satellite broadcasts to web-
based courses, as well increased student engagement and increased student
satisfaction. But in 2008 it started using Blackboard Collaborate technologies
to recruit international and out-of-state students which it traditionally had a
difficult time attracting. By holding live, virtual recruitment seminars, according
to Kristen Wilkerson, WVU increased applications from out-of-area students and
converted40%ofthosewhoattendedtheseonlinerecruitmentsessions.Rick
Bebout, WVU’s Technology Coordinator says, “Blackboard Collaborate saves
travel time and costs for learners who now don’t have to come to campus for
courses and also for instructors who do not have to travel to a regional site to
teach. Blackboard Collaborate is undoubtedly our best tool for converting leads,
as none of our other marketing efforts have such a high rate of conversion.”7
6 Shouppe, Gary, “Wimba Study Break: Transitioning from Face-to-Face to Online Instruction.” Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series (webcast). November 17, 2009.
7 Bebout, Rick, “Wimba Study Break: Increasing Revenue and Enrollments via Collaborative Technology.” The Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series (webcast). March 9, 2010.
In addition to accommodating
increasing enrollments
and retaining existing
students, several schools utilize
Blackboard Collaborate to
recruit even more students.
6
And beyond creating additional revenue streams,
Blackboard Collaborate can help decrease costs as
well. At the University of Utah, the total enrollment
of students taking hybrid Spanish courses (courses
that meet face-to-face but have an online vocal
presence via Blackboard Collaborate) grew by
nearly10%from2006thru2009,risingfrom738
to 792 students. But even more importantly, by
utilizing Blackboard Collaborate in these online
courses, instructors saved time providing feedback
and creating vocal exercises and reduced average
spendperstudentsby42%;from$195perstudent
before hybrid courses, to $114.89 per student with
Blackboard Collaborate. Because these courses
were so collaborative, students remained enrolled,
thereby reducing the department’s overall student
attritionratefrom14%in2007to8.5%in2009.In
fact,the8.5%attritionrate inhybridcourseswas
actually8%lowerthanthe16.5%attritionrateinon-
campus face-to-face courses that same semester.
“Those students in our Blackboard Collaborate
hybrid environment stayed enrolled in the hybrid
environment,” says Linda Ralston of the University’s
Technology Assisted Curriculum Center.8
8 Grow, Rebekah, “Wimba Study Break: Increasing Retention Rates of Online Courses via Collaborative Technology. The Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series (webcast). February 24, 2010.
Destination Cost (at $.50/mile) Time (roundtrip) CO2 savings (kg)
South Charleston, WV $47 1 hr 50 min 46
Beckley $109 4 hr 12 min 107
Point Pleasant $41 1 hr 44 min 40
Teays Valley $30 1 hr 34 min 29
Logan $70 3 hr 16 min 68
Gilbert $94 4 hr 30 min 92
Chart of normal costs and time to drive to Marshall University satellite campuses:
“We’ve been using Blackboard Collaborate to save
time and money on campus. We have satellite and
graduate campuses. It’s just too hard to justify the
cost it would take to drive to these campuses [from
Marshall University’s main campus in Huntington, WV]
and the cost to get reimbursed by the university”
Marianne KleinMarshall University
Save Time and Money with Blackboard Collaborate
To fully convey just how much travel, mileage
reimbursements, and CO2 savings can truly be realized
by using Blackboard Collaborate, technologists at
Marshall University (WV) created a chart that helped
them calculate just how much it typically cost them to
hold one face-to-face meeting that employees from
around the state routinely attended.
For instance (according to the chart on the previous
page) if just one person was to drive to the university’s
satellite campus in Beckley, WV for a meeting, it
would cost Marshall $109 in mileage reimbursement,
would cost four hours of lost time out of the office,
and would put 107 kg of CO2 into the beautiful West
Virginia mountain air. That’s a lot of lost productivity
time and a lot of lost money – for just one person –
when the meeting could instead be held live online
with the same degree of quality.
“We’ve been using Blackboard Collaborate to save time
and money on campus. We have satellite and graduate
campuses. It’s just too hard to justify the cost it would take
to drive to these campuses [from Marshall University’s main
campusinHuntington,WV]andthecosttogetreimbursed
by the university,” says Marianne Klein of Marshall.
In addition to saving money, Blackboard Collaborate was
alsoinstrumentalinallowingMUtosupporta20%leapin
enrollment going into its Fall 2010 semester. MU was able
to handle thousands of new students without having to
build new buildings or incur other costs associated with
physical on-campus space and facilities.
Marshall’s technology team did such an excellent job
of spreading Blackboard Collaborate into so many
instructional departments that it easily spread to many
of its administrative departments as well. For instance,
Kleinmentions thatMU’sHRstaffapproached its IT
team because it wanted to begin to conduct initial
rounds of candidate interviews online instead of in-
person. “Because candidates come in from places
such as Columbus, Lexington, or Louisville, and those
places alone are two-hours away, it’s a decent drive
orflight,”Kleinsays.“SoourHRdepartmentwanted
to use Blackboard Collaborate instead of having
them drive in for an interview. The costs we’ll be
able to eliminate are the cost of a flight or car rental,
an overnight hotel stay, and their time for planning,
processing travel paperwork, committee prep for
airport pickup, campus tour, and dinner. For example,
aflightfromChicagoheretoHuntingtonwouldcost
about $580 or the mileage reimbursement cost would
be about $450 if that person drove in. Our hotel here is
$114 a night and a candidate would then spend about
$228 at the hotel. So for just one candidate interview,
theHRdepartmentcouldsavenearly$700andhours
of administrative time.”9
Similarly, the University of North Carolina Charlotte’s
Education department supervisors use Blackboard
Collaborate to hold live, remote observations of student
teachers who are located in classrooms throughout
the state of North Carolina. “At first we thought we
could have them video tape the observations, put the
tape in the mail, and send it to us so we could give
them feedback in a couple of days. But we found that
immediate feedback via Blackboard Collaborate is
what’s so important in the supervision process. The
students love it too because they can know exactly
what they did right and wrong immediately,” says Dr.
Teresa Petty, Assistant Professor and Online Program
Coordinator at UNC-Charlotte.
“Our university supervisors are reimbursed 50 cents
per-mile, so when we take into account all of the
students we have using these remote observations
and the amount of miles that would be traveled, we
9 Kline, Marianne & Dean, Nicholas, “Solution-ize This: Wimba In & Out.” Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series (webcast). August 9, 2010.
10 Petty,Dr.Teresa,“WimbaStudyBreak:HowSchoolsofEducationCreativelyUtilizeWimba.” The Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series (webcast). June 15, 2010.
Copyright © 1997-2010. Blackboard Inc. All rights reserved. Blackboard, the Blackboard logo, BbWorld, Blackboard Learn, Blackboard Transact, Blackboard Connect, Blackboard Mobile, Blackboard Collaborate, the Blackboard Outcomes System, Behind the Blackboard, and Connect-ED are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackboard Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. U.S. Patent Numbers: 7,493,396, 7,558,853.
www.blackboard.com/collaborate10 East 40th St, Floor 11New York, NY 10016Phone: 866.463.5586
find the amount of money saved is tremendous. And
time saved is even a bigger issue for our professors
because of their limited resources, so teaching live
online really helps save time as well. Blackboard
Collaborate eliminates any geographic limitations
and enables our outreach beyond our state, and can
increase the number of student teachers,” she adds.”10
Saving time while teaching is always priority #1 for
most instructors, and Blackboard Collaborate has
become a must-have for many who wish save time
when grading, giving feedback, or responding to
student inquiries. And what instructor wouldn’t
want to give his or her students more feedback
when research shows an overwhelming difference
in student performance of those who receive
feedbackcomparedtothosestudentswhodon’t?
“Feedback helps learners and promotes student learning.
Formative assessment provides a huge role in student
feedback by allowing them to progress. Vocal feedback
helps learners and in some cases can actually accelerate
their learning. It can even increase higher cognitive levels,”
says Alex Spiers, Learning Technology Developer at
Liverpool John Moores University.
Spiers and George MacGregor find that delivering vocal
feedback via Blackboard Collaborate is “significantly
quicker”thandeliveringwrittenfeedback–34%quicker,
in fact. In their experiments, they recorded how much
time it took them to provide feedback to students both
textually and vocally. They found that “delivering voice
email was significantly quicker.” When summed up,
the total time spent delivering voice email was 2 hours
and 15 minutes while delivery of the same feedback in
written form took 3 hours and 47 minutes.11
Just as saving time has always been a priority, saving
the environment is just starting to become one. As
evidenced earlier, schools like the University of Georgia
and Marshall University have already begun to calculate
how much CO2 they’ve been able to eliminate from
the atmosphere by ‘going green’ with Blackboard
Collaborate. And their timing couldn’t be better not just
for the climate of the Untied States, but also for the
climate of the world.
Through its 2008 Climate Change Act, the UK
government has a target to reduce carbon emissions by
80%by2050.Theeducationsectorhasthereforebeen
asked to devise strategies that will make real energy
savings, including the potential to generate its own
energy using green technologies such as wind-turbines
and solar panels. One area identified by the JISC
SusteIT report as having huge potential for reducing
overall carbon emissions is the use of technology,
suggesting that the higher education sector should
look at investing in more sophisticated and intelligent
IT infrastructures that, for example, enable better
remote conferencing and flexible home working. This
would not only meet user needs, but reduce travel and
the energy associated with it. A study by the Climate
Group Report (#20083) found that ICT applications
couldreduceglobalcarbonemissionsby15%in2020.12
It’s evident that institutions can save time, money, and
the environment by using Blackboard Collaborate while
even creating additional revenue streams. Whether
saving money by reducing travel or increasing revenue by
accommodating new student enrollments, Blackboard
Collaborate can quickly and easily make a significant
positive impact on any institution’s bottom line.
11 MacGregor, George and Spiers, Alex, “Wimba Study Break: ‘It’s as if the student is in front of you’ - Using Wimba Voice Email for Feedback on Formative Assessment.” The Wimba Distinguished Lecture Series (webcast). June 16, 2010.
12 Down, Kerry Ann, “Top tips for a greener IT department.” JISC Newsletter. December 16, 2009.