Blackboard at UO Getting started

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Blackboard at UOGetting started

• JQ JohnsonDirector, Center for Educational
  Technologies
• University of Oregonjqj_at_darkwing.uoregon.edu
• July 2006

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This presentation

• Blackboard at the University of Oregon
• an introduction for staff with minimal previous
  blackboard experience
• Overview and institutional context
• A students view of a typical course
• Issues for department support
• Coursesites for departments
• How does an instructor use Blackboard?
• Discussion

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What is Blackboard?

• A commercial, web-based Course Management
  System
• An integrated, easy to use environment offering
  wide variety of features for teaching
• access control only enrolled students
  participate in course
• easy web publishing of syllabus, lecture notes,
  etc.
• asynchronous communication announcements,
  threaded discussion, surveys
• synchronous communication chat room, virtual
  whiteboard
• online quizzes, homework submission, and
  gradebook
• collaborative workgroups
• A UO Library service

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Blackboard usage consistent growth since 1999

• Statistics
• as of 18 Nov 2005
• 18,029 student users (85 of all students)
• 1172 active fall-term or fall-sem Banner (CRN)
  coursesites
• 1138 faculty, GTFs, and staff teaching using
  Blackboard
• More than half of all UO student credit hours now
  have a Blackboard component (49,900 enrollments
  in fall)
• 3500 courses/year use Bb
• Approx. 1,500,000 web server hits/day, 20,000
  logins/day

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The Blackboard team at the Library

• Not shown
• Library Systems staff
• CET Consulting (faculty support)
• ITCs (student support)
• Media Services, CETIM
• etc.

Tim Boshart Blackboard Coordinator and system
admin
JQ Johnson Director, CET and project manager
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The UO Blackboard home page --
https//blackboard.uoregon.edu
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Typical UO Blackboard courses

• Courses in almost every discipline
• Large lecture, small seminar, and everything in
  between, plus non-course uses
• Some use it for true distance ed and hybrid
  courses, but most supplement face to face
• Different instructors use different features
• Different instructors have different pedagogical
  goals
• Most instructors start slow first term teaching
  with Blackboard use only a few features

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Field trip

• A tour of a typical UO coursesite

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Field trip reprise A Blackboard CourseSite
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Field trip reprise Course Documents
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Field trip reprise Lecture Notes
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Field trip reprise Discussion forum
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Field trip reprise Online quizzes
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Blackboard users

• All instructors and students have accounts. Log
  in as you would to wireless or to modem pool,
  e.g.
• Username jqj_at_uoregon.edu
• Password my darkwing/ gladstone password(dont
  know your password? https//password.uoregon.edu)
  
• Data in Blackboard is loaded from banner twice a
  day

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Blackboard coursesites

• Coursesites are created automatically for
  (almost) all UO CRN courses each term.
• Instructors can request a merged site combining
  CRNs
• UO instructor of record is Blackboard
  instructor
• Default to unavailable to students instructor
  must activate before use
• Sites created starting beginning of registration
  period for term, then twice a day
• Also sites for department (staff) major
  (undergrad) by request to courseinfo_at_blackboard

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Roles for departmental support

• Dealing with usernames and authentication
• Production help building Bb content for sites
• Provide tech referrals for students
• Provide tech support for faculty
• Creating and maintaining departmental sites
• For undergraduate majors
• For departmental faculty staff
• Other

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Developing course materials

• Faculty develop their own materials
• Center for Educational Technologies (Room 19
  Knight Library) provides training and resources,
  and limited production assistance
• Library and Teaching Effectiveness Program
  provide additional guidance, especially in how to
  use tools effectively for teaching
• Some departments assign GTFs or clerical staff to
  Blackboard support and development
• Library can provide assistance in locating
  materials (reference material for students and
  learning objects for instructors)

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Common problem department member cant log in

• New or adjunct faculty
• Solution
• Make sure faculty person has both UO email and
  current official status
• Verify status using http//directory.uoregon.edu
• Make sure paperwork is processed promptly
• If person will be teaching, make sure Banner
  instructor of record is correct
• Contact courseinfo_at_blackboard.uoregon.edu for
  assistance

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Common problem course assistants, visitors

• Temporary visitors do not have Bb accounts, so
  can not be added to coursesite. People with
  longer-term relationships may qualify for a
  courtesy appointment
• GTFs have accounts, but no central database of
  GTF assignments, so instructor must add them to
  course (usually to lecture coursesite) by hand
  if they arent instructor of record

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User support online
http//libweb.uoregon.edu/cet/blackboard/help/ A
lso Blackboard FAQ, news blog, vendor manuals,
etc.
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User support for students

• Only minimal user support typically needed
• Mostly self-help
• Some support provided in Library ITCs
• Problems with usernames/passwords and with
  browser configuration referred to Micro Services
• Escalation for 2nd level tech support
  courseinfo_at_blackboard.uoregon.edu (Tim Boshart,
  JQ Johnson)

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User support for faculty

• For instruction in using Blackboard
• CET Consulting, Knight Library Rm 19, 6-1942
• Teaching Effectiveness Program
• Escalation for 2nd level tech support
  courseinfo_at_blackboard.uoregon.edu (Tim Boshart,
  JQ Johnson)

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Getting started

• Instructors edit coursesite via Control Panel
• Add material by filling out forms in web browser
  or uploading files
• Reuse material by copying a previous version of
  the course
• Change settings for appearance, functionality
• Invoke instructor tools (email, gradebook, etc.)
• or via EDIT VIEW

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Exercise getting started

• Log in and visit your coursesite control panel
• Create a staff information entry for yourself
• (do other exercises on your own after this
  workshop)

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Common Blackboard tasks (that almost every
instructor needs to do)

• Organizing your site
• Adding content
• Posting announcements
• Adding support staff
• Making coursesite available to students (and/or
  guests)
• Copying material from previous terms

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Common tasks organizing your site

• Site is divided into
• Content areas, which contain folders, subfolders,
  items, etc. Each has a button (edit using
  Manage Course Menu)
• Special areas, e.g. Announcements, Tools
• Divide the site into natural pieces, e.g.,
• Chronologically
• Functionally
• Into content modules

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Organizing your site (continued)

• Think about organization in advance
• Imagine navigation from students viewpoint
• Use folders
• Include pointers
• New material in announcements
• Cross references via course links
• Links to tools (e.g., discussion forums) in
  content
• Disable features you definitely wont use

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Common tasks adding course content

• Visit a content area, e.g. Course Documents, in
  control panel (or click edit view at top of a
  student view of content area)
• Add appropriate content using the add bar, e.g.
• Item (may include title, explanatory text, and
  attachments)
• Folder
• External Link (to websites outside of Blackboard)
• Course Link (cross references inside your site)
• Test (online quiz)
• etc. lots of additional things on pull-down
  menu
• Once created, content can be modified, removed,
  or moved

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Example adding your syllabus as an item with
attachment

• Usually placed in Course Information
• Usually uploaded as an attached copy of the Word
  document you hand out, either as .doc or more
  often converted to .html

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Item characteristics

• All items and folders (and many other objects)
  include
• Name (and font color)
• Text (usually optional)
• Smart text (auto processing of URLs, line breaks)
• Can also be plain text or html
• Can also include WebEQ or MathML equations
• Attachments (optional normally shown as a link)
• Options

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Attachments

• Any item or folder may have associated files
• Attachments are copied from your hard disk to the
  blackboard server

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Choosing file formats for attachments

• HTML is universally readable, and can be created
• Using MS Words save as web page
• By hand or using custom tools, e.g. Dreamweaver
• .DOC, .XLS, and .PPT can be posted directly, but
• Require students to have appropriate reader
  software
• Preserve original with full fidelity (a plus and
  a minus)
• PDF also universally readable
• Create on PC using Acrobat or PDFCreator
• MacOS X has built-in PDF support
• Think carefully before posting specialized
  formats
• Consider download time

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More content links

• Use Add External Link to create a link to a site
  outside of Blackboard (or just use Add Item and
  type the URL in the text of the link)
• Use Add course link to create a link to another
  part of your coursesite. If you copy your
  coursesite, the copied link is updated to point
  to the corresponding point in the new site.

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More content editing

• After creating an item you can
• Change order of items in a folder
• Modify change name and text, add more
  attachments, etc.
• Manage control adaptive release, review status,
  statistics tracking
• Copy move to a different location or site
• Remove delete the item

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Demo adding some coursesite content

• Post syllabus.htm
• Link to an external page
• Create folders in Course Documents
• Upload powerpoint lecture notes
• Create a PDF file, and upload
• Add a teachers assistant
• Set coursesite to available

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The discussion board

• A general-purpose tool for student participation
• Asynchronous (like email)
• Threaded
• Hierarchical structure
• Discussion board
• Forum
• Thread
• Message

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Setting up a discussion board

• Create forum (or link to existing one) in any
  content area using Add Discussion Board
  (pulldown list)
• Choose appropriate forum settings
• Can control who posts, who manages, what sorts of
  posts are allowed, etc.
• Admin can remove posts
• Freeze a forum by blocking all users from posting
• Post a message to start a new thread

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Typical uses of discussion board

• Post a question and solicit answers/comments
• Forum for unstructured discussion
• Allow students to post assignments/website
  critiques/projects for peer review
• Mid-term course evaluation
• Signup sheets
• Brainstorming, test review, Dumb Questions,
  FAQ,

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Some further discussion board reading

• UO Teaching Effectiveness web pages
  http//tep.uoregon.edu/technology/discussion/enric
  hdiscuss.html
• Susan Ko, Steve Rossen (2001). Teaching online a
  practical guide. Boston Houghton Mifflin.
• Marguerita McVay Lynch (2002). The online
  educator A guide to creating the virtual
  classroom. Routledge/Farmer.
• Palloff, R. M. Pratt, K. (1999). Building
  Learning Communities in Cyberspace Effective
  Strategies for the Online Classroom, Jossey-Bass.

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Common tasks adding course support staff

• We create blackboard accounts for all students,
  instructors, and most staff, so your GTF will
  already have a blackboard account. We enroll all
  instructors and students in the right
  coursesites, but don't have information on GTFs,
  so instructors must enroll them
• Use Control Panel ? Enroll User add your GTF to
  site
• Use List/Modify Users change role to teachers
  assistant
• Optional Control Panel ? Staff Information
• N.B. You can't create accounts for non-UO
  people.

• In most cases a GTF should be a "teacher's
  assistant". Other possibilities
• guest -- can only access Course Information, etc.
  
• student -- just the basics (note, though, that UO
  discourages unofficial auditors only add a
  student to your coursesite if there is a
  legitimate educational reason)
• grader -- access to gradebook, but can't add
  course documents
• course builder -- can add course documents, but
  no gradebook access (particularly good for an
  undergrad assistant who should not be able to see
  other students' grades)

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Common tasks activating your site making it
available to students

• Your site starts out listed as (unavailable)
  you can see it, but your students can not
• To activate a coursesite, set it to available
  (Control Panel ? Settings ? Course Availability)
• Until you do this, site is invisible to students!

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Changing guest access

• Guests (including strangers logged in as
  preview) can view portions of your site
• No guest access ever to private student
  information (roster, discussion board, gradebook)
• Change access if you wish
• Settings ? Guest Access sets overall access
• Manage Course Menu ? "Modify" allows you to set
  guest access for particular areas.

Default allow guest access to course
information, announcements
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Common tasks copying a coursesite (from a
previous term)

• Use Copy button in content areas to copy single
  items
• Use Course Copy to copy a whole coursesite
• Visit the OLD course control panel
• Click Course Copy, then Copy Course Materials
  into an Existing Course
• Browse for the destination course
• Select materials to copy (do not copy enrollment
  information)

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Blackboard features in widespread use at UO

• Fill in the blanks easy web page creation
  (e.g., announcements, annotations)
• Posting syllabus and course assignments
• Posting lecture materials (html, MS Powerpoint,
  PDF, etc.)
• Gradebook (if only for securely distributing
  grades to students)
• Threaded discussion forum

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Features in moderate use

• E-mail interface
• Online quizzes (usually low-stakes e.g.,
  self-assessment), often built using Respondus
• Surveys
• Group communication features
• Assignment manager (for student-submitted
  assignments)
• Student web pages

• Less widely used (so far)
• Chat tools
• Integrated calendar, to-do lists
• Programmed instruction (learning units, SCORM
  learning object content, etc.)
• Course cartridges (publisher-provided content)
• Rich (locally developed) multimedia content
  video, animation, simulation, etc.

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Future plans for the Blackboard system

• New mechanisms for access (course-specific trial
  accounts)
• Encouraging more use as course content delivery
  tool, not just course management hybrid courses
• Continued addition of new features
• Controlled release of content
• Better non-Roman language support
• Better online quiz support (computed question
  types)
• Possibly new modules for blogs and wikis
• LDAP authentication
• More integration with library services, e.g.
  e-Reserve, streaming video
• More use of modern tools for creating course
  content, e.g. WebEQ, Camtasia, Softchalk
  LessonBuilder, Respondus

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For more information

• University of Oregon Blackboard site
  http//blackboard.uoregon.edu
• UO Blackboard help filehttp//libweb.uoregon.edu
  /cet/blackboard/help/
• UO Center for Educational Technologies
  http//libweb.uoregon.edu/cet/
• Southworth, Howie, et al. (2006). Blackboard for
  Dummies. Hoboken, NJ Wiley.
• Or contact
• JQ Johnson, 6-1746, jqj_at_uoregon.edu
• Tim Boshart, 6-1458, tboshart_at_uoregon.edu