Academic Technology Subcommittee

Minutes

August 22, 2014, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., SSB 400

Attending: Brad Koch, Ben Schwartz, and Jason McDonald from Blackboard. Michael Erskine, Rick Beck, James Lyall, Mike Hart, Patsy Hernandez, Lee Taylor, Rhonda Eaker, Stephanie Protsman, Miguel Garza Wicker, Letitia Pleis, Brent Metzger, Chelsey Baker-Houck, Art Campos, Randy Hyman, Ned Muhovich, Ed Jacobs, Chris Mancuso, Elizabeth Parmelee, Manisha Pinge, Erick Dunker, Vicki Leal, Megan Webb, Joan Foster, Lindsey Packer, BraelinPantel, Claire Hay, Nathan Solheim, Heather Ligrani, Cindy Carlson

Absent: Peggy O’Neill-Jones, Jeff Loats

  • Brad Koch, Vice President Product Management, Blackboard, gave a presentation on the new Blackboard and what they are looking to deliver in the next 12 months.
  • They are focused on education and are very student centric. They are streamlining what they are offering. There are four themes: Student Centric, Simple, Mobile, and SaaS. Using this new LMS can engage your faculty. They are investing heavily in mobile. There is a new delivery model for Blackboard, which is aSaaS solution.
  • They have collaborative mobile and live video. Instructors can do grading from a tablet. The SaaS offering enables you to move to a cloud version of Learn. It is the same Blackboard you’re using. There is zero downtime for upgrades. There is larger data storage being developed.
  • Demonstrated the new user experience. Student profile page linked into their internship program. Has a single navigation area.
  • James explained that we have made it through a long process of consolidating courses on Blackboard. We no longer have a split environment. All of our courses are now on Blackboard. When students log-in, they see their courses. We had a lot of confusion when the environment was split. That took 18 months to set the stage for this conversation. We are working on a lot of integration. The amount of students and faculty using itis now at 68% and they are not online courses.
  • Instructors start in same view. Blackboard is simplifying workflow. Launching a Java free platform. Taking the most from the LMS and writing a brand new first rate user experience, including a new mobile experience they are unifying for all mobile devices. They have a new instructor app for mobile devices and have updated the student apps.
  • Questions:
  • What are your plans for Just-in-Time Teaching? Giving full credit by default. Don’t know if we can do this. Grade by question option.
  • How can we leverage for student community engagement? Community focus is internal, student groups internal to the university. Not designed to be an external marketing tool.
  • They are creating MOOCs.
  • There is a built in retention center, including a number of criteria they watch. They track all of that data in a centralized office looking at student retention. There is a module as part of the analytics division that takes from student information. You can set parameters for different types of searches. There is a new financial aid report in the system now. You can administer badges through Blackboard at this time. The badge appears on both the profile page and the backpack page. Competency-based education drives functionality. Learners can set their own completion dates.