Student support materials for Blackboard Vista

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Student support materials for Blackboard Vista
Paul Burt E-Learning Unit University of
Surrey p.burt_at_surrey.ac.uk
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Context

• University of Surrey opted for WebCT Vista 2 as
  its first university-wide VLE in 2003
• Now v4.2, supporting institutions at Roehampton
  University and Farnborough College
• From the beginning the Surrey environment has
  been named ULearn

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Context

• ULearn presence for modules is mainly dependant
  on academic staff opting to use the system
• Materials and course development usually
  undertaken directly by the academic staff
• Wide variety of pedagogies, designs and
  structures in different ULearn modules
• Expectation that module ULearn inductions would
  be led by module staff

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Identifying a need

• Survey on the student experience of ULearn
  undertaken between January and June 2007
• 676 students across 17 modules,
• 5 of the 8 former academic schools represented
• 30 questions on optical marked form

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Results indicated a need
Only 48 felt that sufficient time was spent on
student induction and explaining how and why
ULearn is used

• Better tutorial at beginning of use, I was
  unaware of several useful features until very
  recently
• Perhaps more training for some who struggled
  using it
• A crash course on how to use ULearn, this would
  make using ULearn easier

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Approach taken

• At the time the E-Learning Unit was operating at
  stretched capacity because of other projects
• Identified that support materials needed to be
  on students wavelength
• Concerns about authenticity if attempting to
  simulate peer-to-peer guidance and advice

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Approach taken

• Solution adopted was to employ a final year
  student with direct experience of ULearn (Ehsan)
  on a temporary basis to work with ELU staff to

• review the provision of current ULearn support
  material
• suggest ways to rationalise and improve what was
  provided
• implement the changes that are agreed

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Previous support materials

• A collection of static guides were available
• Each on a different tool or aspect of the system
• Difficult to get a feel for what went on in the
  system
• Especially difficult if not a current user as
  closed system

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Aims of the new support materials

• Coincided with our upgrade of Vista from v3 to v4
  (new functionality)
• Also coincided with a university re-branding
• Everything in one place but accessible multiple
  ways
• Aim to give a real taste of how best to use
  ULearn to support learning
• A journey through the environment encountering
  all main tools
• Factual information on using tools considered
  secondary
• Additional benefit of letting staff whove yet to
  consider ULearn see what can be done

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Format of the new support materials

• Small number of static information pages
• Demo (movie) of a hypothetical student using
  ULearn through the duration of a hypothetical
  module
• Produced using Adobe Captivate
• Audio information is duplicated in captions
• Links to technical support information

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The new support materials

• http//ulearn.surrey.ac.uk
• local copy of login page

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Evaluation (before you ask!)

• No formal evaluation has been undertaken
• Not easy to obtain statistics on usage of support
  materials (due to location in Vista System
  Files)
• No immediate plans for follow up ULearn
  experience survey

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Reflection

• Putting the material in System Files has proved
  beneficial for minor edits
• Captivate demo movie resulted in much larger file
  (30Mb) than planned and cannot be simply
  compressed
• Difficult to update or modify Captivate movie
• Accessibility issues with the demo

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Questions / Comments?
Contact
e-learning_at_surrey.ac.uk p.burt_at_surrey.ac.uk