Case Study
Enterprise Functionality
at Kettering University
“One of Kettering University’s goals is to provide leading edge information technology solutions for administrative,
academic and research areas. We want to have an increasingly high-tech look and feel on campus to reinforce
our role as a first-class engineering and technical school. Blackboard is one of our strategic delivery systems.
We rely on Blackboard to deliver our 24 x 7 operational needs as well as play a key role in helping us to reach
our strategic goals.”
– Jim Hamilton
Vice President, Information Technology, Kettering University
KETTERING UNIVERSITY
Private university focusing
on engineering, science, and
management.
Blackboard client since
2000
Founded in 1919 in Flint,
Michigan as the School of
Automotive Trades
2,558 Undergraduate
students
568 Graduate Students
150 Faculty Members
www.kettering.edu
The Blackboard Academic Suite™ is an
integral part of life on campus at Kettering
University, a leading engineering school located
in Flint, Michigan. Kettering initially piloted the
Blackboard Learning System–Basic Edition™
in 2000. In 2002, Kettering moved to the
enterprise application, the Blackboard Learning
System™, and later expanded to adopt the
entire Blackboard Academic Suite. Blackboard
has become a mission-critical application on
campus, with uses that encompass teaching
and learning as well as facilitating decision-making
by academic committees. Blackboard’s ease
of use has enabled the faculty to meet the
expectations of the technology-savvy Kettering
student body, who are using Blackboard
throughout campus.
INCREASING ADOPTION OF
BLACKBOARD
The Blackboard Learning System–Basic Edition
was first adopted by the Distance Learning
program, part of Kettering’s graduate school, to
put course content online. Donna Wicks was
hired as a Blackboard System Administrator in
2001. When Wicks joined Kettering, students
created Blackboard accounts themselves.
Among Wicks’ many responsibilities were
to assist the faculty in creating courses in
Blackboard® software, to add and drop
students from courses in Blackboard and to
provide training and support to faculty and
students. In the 2001 – 2002 academic year,
Blackboard Courses and Organizations grew by
144% while use by Instructors and Organization
Managers grew by 196% over the previous
year. Keeping up with the growth of Blackboard
usage on campus required a great deal of
manual intervention on Wicks’ part, such as
ensuring that the right data was available in the
right format and exporting completed courses
by saving them individually to zip files.
To meet the expanding demand for Blackboard
software, Kettering needed to add another
System Administrator. As Wicks considered
options, she was aware that the enterprise
edition of the Blackboard Learning System
provided advanced system administration
capabilities as well as 24 by 7 support of the
application. As a result, Kettering decided to
move to the Blackboard Learning System in
2002. At the same time, Kettering purchased
the Blackboard Community System™ to
improve its web presence. In 2004, Kettering
implemented
the
Blackboard
Content
System™, thus adopting the entire Blackboard
Academic Suite. Moving to the suite was a good
decision for Kettering, according to Wicks: “The
yearly cost of another System Administrator
would be more than what we pay for the entire
Blackboard Academic Suite. Blackboard is my
other employee – and it does not sleep or take
a vacation!”
MEETING FACULTY AND
STUDENT NEEDS
The system integration capabilities of the
Blackboard Learning System have enabled
Kettering to manage readily the growth in
usage of Blackboard. Wicks noted that: “The
integration tools have been a miracle for me.”
Wicks utilizes the Snapshot tool available in
Blackboard to update student enrollments
in classes on an hourly basis, facilitating the
process of adding and dropping students from
courses. She sets up a Blackboard “course
shell” for all Kettering courses, making it
easy for faculty to use Blackboard. Wicks
emphasized that: “the enterprise version of
Case Study
Case Study
Blackboard makes it so much easier to be responsive. I can easily meet
unusual requests from students and faculty. We would not have achieved
the usage of Blackboard that we currently have without the enterprise
version.” Over the two year period from the 2002 to 2004, Blackboard
Courses and Organizations grew by an average of 86% each year; use
of Blackboard software by Instructors and Organization Managers grew
by 31% in the 2002-2003 academic year and 225% in the 2003 - 2004
academic year.
content storage areas. Students have 100 megabytes of storage space.
Laura Sullivan, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, noted
that portability of files is especially useful at Kettering since faculty and
students handle extremely large engineering files and some applications
are only available on selected campus computers. Jim Hamilton, Vice
President of Information Technology, pointed out that the Blackboard
Content System will facilitate thesis review and evaluation, which involves
both a Kettering faculty member and the student’s co-op employer.
The integrations between the Blackboard implementation and campus
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
information systems have become critical in meeting student needs
while also eliminating duplicate work for faculty. The Kettering Student Blackboard is the platform of choice for campus initiatives. Hamilton
Senate recently passed a resolution for the Faculty Senate that strongly noted that when faculty wanted to have a picture roster of students,
encouraged faculty to put the scores of final exams into the Blackboard a decision was made to put the roster into Blackboard, the strategic
gradebook. Given that students access their Blackboard accounts on a delivery system. Kettering is moving towards having the official version
daily basis, it is most convenient for them if grades are available directly of course evaluations be the one conducted through Blackboard.
Wicks is looking forward to implementing
through Blackboard. Faculty will now put
innovative new features in the Blackboard
both final exam and course grades into the
System that will be available
Blackboard gradebook. Final course grades
“The
integration
tools Learning
in 2005. In particular, Adaptive Release
will then be exported from Blackboard into
have been a miracle for functionality, enabling instructors to create
the SCT Banner database that serves as the
me. The enterprise version custom learning paths for students, will
repository for this information.
of Blackboard makes it be very useful for Kettering’s Continuing
THE ACADEMIC SUITE
programs. Wicks is also eager
so much easier to be Education
to implement e-Commerce functionality.
The Blackboard Community System has
responsive. I can easily Wicks summarized the role of Blackboard
become an integral part of conducting the
meet unusual requests from software on campus by her comment that
university’s business as well as fostering
students and faculty. We “If it happens in bricks and mortar, it will
student
organizations.
Organizations
within Blackboard have been created for
would not have achieved the happen in Blackboard.”
key decision-making groups including the
usage of Blackboard that ABOUT KETTERING UNIVERSITY
Presidential Search Committee, the Academic
we currently have without Kettering University’s mission is to serve
Computing Committee, and the University
society by preparing future leaders for a
the enterprise version.”
Council. Organizations within Blackboard are
global workplace through undergraduate
used to post relevant documents, to discuss
– Donna Wicks
cooperative education, graduate education,
issues and to keep key campus constituencies
Blackboard System Administrator
and research in engineering, science, and
up-to-date.
management. Kettering was named the
Blackboard software now provides the
General Motors Institute from 1926 to 1982
mechanism that Kettering uses to run student
while owned and operated by General Motors Corporation. Kettering
government elections. To facilitate campus elections, Wicks created became a private college in 1982. It ranks consistently among the top
and populated the student election Organizations within Blackboard to specialty schools in engineering in the nation, as ranked by the U.S.
ensure that all eligible students could vote. In the last election, turnout News & World Report. A unique aspect of Kettering is the Cooperative
was 40.5%. Jon Kowalski, a Kettering senior, pointed out that: “Many Education program.
universities can say that Blackboard is quickly becoming part of their
DNA…with courses and other administrative content finding their way ABOUT BLACKBOARD
into Blackboard. However, how many institutions can say that’s true
Blackboard is a leading provider of enterprise software applications
on the student side as well? Great things are happening at Kettering in
and related services to the education industry. The Company’s product
terms of student-led functions and organizations – and this is only the
line consists of the Blackboard Academic Suite and the Blackboard
beginning.”
Commerce Suite. Blackboard’s clients include colleges, universities,
Since its deployment in October 2004, the Blackboard Content System schools and other education providers, as well as textbook publishers
has caught fire. “MyFiles” is Kettering’s term for the Web-enabled and student-focused merchants that serve education providers and their
file storage capabilities that allow users on campus to have dedicated students. Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
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CAN HELP YOU CREATE A NETWORKED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT,
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