How We Learned to
Stop Worrying
and
Love the Blackboard
Serge J. Goldstein
Associate CIO and Director of Academic Technology Services
Princeton University
Office of Information Technology, Princeton University
www.princeton.edu/academicservices
Academic Services
Agenda
History of Blackboard at
Princeton
Keys to Loving your LMS
The Future of the LMS
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History of Blackboard
at Princeton
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Count of Princeton’s Course Websites
by term, since 2003
Starting in
Fall 2000,
a course
website
was made
in Bb for
every
course
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Post-2003, Active Sites
1400
1200
1000
800
Total sites
600
Active sites
400
200
0
2004
2005
2006
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2008
2009
5
2010
2011
2012
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Current Usage Statistics
Logins as of • 763 faculty (73%)
April, 2013: • 6,448 students (98%)
Network
traffic
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• September to May
3-6 mbits/second
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Keys to Loving
the LMS
(and having it love you
Back)
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Universalize
Extend
Standardize
Integrate
Pre-load
Make it
Easy
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One I Forgot:
Support IT!
• Give it adequate staff and server resources:
• 2 full-time user support staff, 1.5 full-time tech support
• Run as enterprise system with same back-end support as
Peopleoft/Oracle
• 99.999% uptime
• Keep it up to date
• Running 9.1
• Stay on stable edge
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Universalize
Exponential value-add
LMS
universalize
Academic homepage
One-stop academic shopping
• Announcements
• Launchpad
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Issue: “I hate Blackboard”
Dining Services of academic software
Can link own site to the
Blackboard site
Not just faculty member’s sites
• Has key University information
• Provides common functionality
Can’t please everyone, but you can EQUALLY
DISPLEASE everyone!
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Principle of Equitable Pain
• People can tolerate painful IT systems, a long as they
are equally painful for everyone.
• Gives people something to complain about.
• Makes them feel superior.
• But they MUST be reliable and unchanging.
• Bb is the dining services of academic software:
• Few like the food, but very few want to cook their own meals.
• Heaven forbid if you run out of the lousy food.
• If you install a new LMS, people will eventually come to
dislike it:
• Make sure they all dislike it equally.
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Universalize
Extend
Standardize
Integrate
Pre-load
Make it
Easy
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Standardize
Common look
and feel
Build templates for
course websites
Include basic content breakdown
• Show where public and private content goes
• Include appropriate copyright warnings
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Universalize
Extend
Standardize
Integrate
Pre-load
Make it
Easy
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What to Pre-load
University
Partition Course description, etc.
Instructor
Partition Public/private partition
Building
Blocks
Integrate course info from Course
Information System (PeopleSoft)
Information Get information from any online
system (but link to canonical system)
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Sample reading list:
Sample
reading list:
Reading/Writing assignments:
Reading/Writing
assignments:
Requirements/Grading:
Requirements/Grading:
Prerequisites and Restrictions:
Prerequisites
and Restrictions:
Schedule/Classroom assignment:
Schedule/Classroom
assignment:
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Universalize
Extend
Standardize
Integrate
Pre-load
Make it
Easy
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How to Make It Easy…
Help files
FAQ
Office
Visits
(tutoring)
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Help desk
(special)
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Why useuse
a Course
Why
a Management
Course System?
Management System?
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Getting Help with
Blackboard
Getting
Help
with Blackboard
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Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently
Asked& How-to
Questions & How-to
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Universalize
Extend
Standardize
Integrate
Pre-load
Make it
Easy
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Integration
Not all content needs
to be in Blackboard
External content can be
COPIED into or LINKED
Building Blocks make this possible
No need to replace existing systems;
link them instead
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Linked systems at Princeton
Image
database
Audio
reserves
Video
reserves
eReserves
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Linked systems at Princeton
Video
reserves
(films, tv)
eReserves
(text)
Blackboard
Image
database
(Almagest)
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Audio
reserves
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Arrowsmith, W. Luxury W.
and Death
in the Satyricon
1966, in
5: 304-331
Arrowsmith,
Luxury
and Arion,
Death
the Satyricon Arion, 1966, 5: 304-331
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Click on the title you want to view below.
Click on the title you want to view below.
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Be aware of copyright rules: unauthorized electronic
duplication of all copyrighted materials is prohibited.
Be aware of copyright rules: unauthorized electronic duplication of all copyrighted materials is prohibited.
If you experience problems viewing the videos on this page, please install the latest version of the Flash Player
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Universalize
Extend
Standardize
Integrate
Pre-load
Make it
Easy
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Sources for Bb plugins
Licensed from Blackboard
Obtained from other Universities
(usually free)
Purchased from vendors
(often comes with a vendor product)
Developed in-house
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Functionality delivered via Bb at Princeton
CAS
authentication
(self-developed)
Filebridge
(from another
University)
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Sectioning tool
Course Book List
(self-developed)
(self-developed)
Blackboard
Mobile Learn
Wimba
voice tools
(from Blackboard)
(from vendor)
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Course book list tool
NEA requirement
All course books must be listed on course website
Cost
Goal is to reduce cost of textbooks
ISBN
Economics textbook: $500
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Plans for the future
Connect Bb to social
networking sites
Stay current with Bb
upgrades, currently
running 9.1, SP11
Continue integration
with other systems
using LTI
• Faculty and staff training
• Must port plugins
Look at web services
to extend functionality
Increase use of
interactive elements
• wikis, blogs, discussion
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Why do We Love Blackboard
• It works
• It is relatively cheap ($100K)
• Everyone knows it
• It is well integrated
• It is well supported
• It does the basic job (file distribution): Commodity
• We can extend it
• Lots of plugins
• Everyone can complain about it
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