With the best of intentions:

First semester experiences using BlackBoard

Presented by David Winograd & Tony Betrus

SUNY Potsdam

Presentation Overview• Planning and Acquisition

– What were the faculty needs?– What were the campus expectations?– Why course management software?

• Implementation– Dress rehearsal– First semester rollout– Our support personnel

• Recommendations

Faculty Needs

• The ability to place syllabi on the web for on and off-campus access.

• A communication medium to replace newsgroups.

• A file transfer medium– We were using e-mail attachments primarily– Class submissions and class files were

introduced, but did not have off-campus access.

• As many features as possible ultimately.

• After some consultation, administration decided what was best for faculty.

• No needs assessment was conducted.

• It was decided that whatever we did, we should start small, and learn from our experiences.

Faculty Needs

Expectations• Keep current with other institutions.

– If we’re not moving forward, we’re moving backward.

• Replace and integrate currently existing services.– Web syllabi– Newsgroups– File transfer

• Some sort of Distance Education thingy.– Enrollment increase– We’re in a rural area, so it could decrease

students’ inconvenience (driving time).• Part-time students are large % of our population,

and we’ll get more part-time students if the inconvenience factor is lessened.

Expectations

Why Course Management Software?

• Provost’s Initiative

• Campus was providing services that were ‘piecemeal’

• We’re going to get left behind

• So course management software is the ‘solution’.

But which course management software do we choose?

• What were our choices?– FirstClass– TopClass– Webct– BlackBoard

• Why Blackboard?

Indeed, Why BlackBoard?

• Sold as having:– Most features– Least expensive– Most stable– Easiest learning curve

• The all-in-one package

Implementation

• Software was purchased and available as early as Summer 2000.

• Promise of full on campus BlackBoard support for use by Fall 2000.

• But the server didn’t come until November 2000. . . . oops

• Instead, the first semester course materials were housed at http://www.blackboard.com.

• Slow to no Internet connectivity.– 1) BlackBoard was ‘overloaded’ with new

customers.– 2) Our ‘blazing’ internet speed on campus

didn’t help.

• This was totally unacceptable.

• This created a bad example for the students and faculty.

Implementation: The dress rehearsal

• Limited feature set– BlackBoard.com uses version 2– We had BlackBoard version 5 sitting in the box.

• No campus support.– (remember, this was promised earlier)

• Blackboard wouldn’t archive any courses housed on their server for use on local servers.

Implementation: The dress rehearsal

Implementation: 1st semester Rollout

• New BlackBoard certified Dell server.

• BlackBoard version 5

• Installed between Fall 2000 and Spring 2001 semesters.

• Faculty hit the ground running in the Spring.

• Smashed straight into a wall of problems.

Implementation:Equipment Problems

• Arcane authentication system.– Froze at random– If 3 or more people simultaneously tried to

register for BlackBoard. The whole system froze, and wasn’t available until it was reset. . . usually the next the day in the case of a night class.

• Gradebook malfunctioned

• Synchronous conferencing didn’t work.

Technical Support

• No technical support during class time (for classes meeting after 4:00 p.m.)– In our case, this was all of them.

• Technical questions mired in a dual-layered bureaucracy.– Questions were not directly addressed and

normally went unanswered.

Technical Support• There were typical implementation bugs that one

would expect from any software installation.– The upgrade at month fixed many problems, and

caused others.

• This wouldn’t have been a problem if only a handful of people were using BlackBoard... we had much more than a handful.– We planned for 5 people and ended up with 30.

Instructional Support

• One person was put in charge.

• Some advanced IT background.

• Attended the national BlackBoard conference.

• Training consisted of being given the manual.

• Learned on the job, during the full implementation phase.

• Scheduled and conducted training sessions for faculty before the Spring 2001 semester.

• Sold BlackBoard through:– E-mail: Campus wide e-mail Fall 2000

soliciting immediate BlackBoard implementation for anyone interested.

• This is exactly what we didn’t want to happen.

Instructional Support

• Actually provided technical support

• Provided no instructional support– Efforts to form a peer-to-peer BlackBoard

support group were blocked and later co-opted

• Overburdened herself.– Too many faculty to support with limited

resources.– Many technical problems were beyond her

control.– Many faculty questions went unanswered.

Instructional Support

Recommendations

• It is critical, absolutely vital, that the demonstration projects be of the highest possible standard, since failure or mediocre results will have exactly the opposite effect from what is desired. For this reason it is imperative that financial, technological, and human resources be ruthlessly focussed. (Moore & Kearsley, 1996).

Recommendations

• Have a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish for your campus.– Do a needs assessment.

• Do you really need a course management system?• What are your goals and objectives?• Gather experiences from other institutions.

• Have a timeline for partial and full implementation with significant stages identified.

Recommendations

• Plan small, and build incrementally.– Build from small successes– Learn from problems

• Have sufficient, qualified, instructional and technical support personnel.

• Make sure you have strong administrative support.

Thanks for coming!

Anthony Betrus, PhD

betrusak@potsdam.edu

David Winograd, PhD

winogrdm@potsdam.edu

Department of Information and Communication Technology

SUNY Potsdam

http://www.potsdam.edu/educ/ict/home.htm

Presentation available at:

http://www2.potsdam.edu/educ/betrusak/aect2001/