| For the UO Libraries,
Blackboard has become "mission critical" in fulfilling some
of the library's central goals: enriching the student learning experience
and advancing access to resources for teaching and research. Blackboard
training programs are now handled through the library's newly established
Center for Educational Technologies (CET), where faculty can receive
assistance with all aspects of Blackboard operations. CET is located
in Room 19 on the ground floor of Knight Library.
For more information, call 346-1942 from
9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Students can find out more
about Blackboard by visiting the library Information Technology Centers
(ITCs) or by calling 346-1935.
Several upgrades to the Blackboard system have occurred in the past
six months, and more are planned. Among the newest Blackboard features
are:
- Department sites. Blackboard now allows
academic units to set up a "coursesite" for departmental
faculty. These sites have been useful in several academic departments
as a place for communicating with faculty, particularly for sharing
information about teaching. If a regular coursesite is the online extension
of lectures, then a departmental coursesite might be an online extension
of a faculty meeting. Typically, one faculty member in the department
is designated as the "instructor" for the site, and all faculty
and staff are automatically enrolled in the department's "course." Department
coursesites are permanent; they aren't disabled from term to term as
are coursesites for university classes.
- Majors. Similarly, "majors" coursesites
can be set up for departments that offer an undergraduate major. These
coursesites are handy for communicating with students whose major falls
within a department. All students majoring in the field are automatically
enrolled in the "course."
- Gradebook upload to DuckWeb. Faculty members can
now upload their final grades from a Blackboard gradebook into a DuckWeb
grade roster instead of having to enter them manually.
- Blackboard "Application Pack I." The "AP
I" upgrade (installed this summer) includes a glossary tool that
allows instructors to build a coursesite-wide list of specialized terms
and definitions, improved support for mathematical notation in Blackboard
content, and the ability for instructors to customize the list of courses
they see on the My UO page (hiding old, no longer needed courses).
- Blackboard "Application Pack II, Service Pack I." Installed
in November 2004, this upgrade includes many bug fixes and numerous
added features, such as:
- Improved support for the Firefox web browser
- Test and survey answer download: Allows instructors
to download detailed results of tests and surveys for statistical analysis
or student performance tracking
- Quick tool linking: When instructors add material
to a content page in the coursesite, they can now directly add a discussion
board forum, a live chat, or any tool directly in any area of the course
with a few clicks
- ChalkBox support: Allows the installation and
management of ChalkBox titles, which are a new type of course cartridge
accompanying specific textbooks that contains both content and interactive
tools
- SCORM and IMS players: Allow the inclusion of
SCORM 1.2, NLN, and IMS format learning objects within a Blackboard
site, facilitating faculty collaboration with peers and use of best-quality
content.
To learn more about SCORM, see http://www.academiccolab.org/projects/scorm.html
- Document Unpackager: This new content type allows
an instructor to upload a zip file containing folders and files to
Blackboard, where it is unpackaged. Course content items are then created
with the files attached. The directory structure within the zip file
is translated into folders within Blackboard.
- Advanced Group Management: If you are an instructor
who wants to use Blackboard groups to organize your course, check out
the Advanced Group Management tool in the Control Panel. It makes management
of groups and assignment of students to groups much easier.
- Load Sharing. Over winter break the Blackboard
server architecture was substantially changed to better handle increased
student usage. Instead of having a single Blackboard application server,
several servers now share the load. This change should be invisible
to users, but will result in better performance and reliability at
peak usage times such as Dead Week.
For more information on any of these Blackboard features, contact JQ
Johnson, Blackboard manager and director of the Center for Educational
Technologies (346-1746, jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu).
To request set-up of a department or majors coursesite, email courseinfo@blackboard.uoregon.edu The
Blackboard website is at https://blackboard.uoregon.edu/ |
