Faculty share their experiences piloting Niihka
Introduction
The new Niihka Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) is proving to be very responsive to
satisfying the dynamic needs of Miami instructors and their students. This is the main consensus among
several faculty members interviewed as part of the ongoing Niihka pilot program.
The faculty members are part of a select group participating in a pilot program that started at the
beginning of this semester. These instructors have expressed optimism that such responsiveness and
other affordances in Niihka would support more effective teaching and learning at Miami University.
For Dr. Heidi McKee, Associate Professor in the English Department, “The responsiveness of the
[technical support of the] system to user needs is really helpful for our pedagogical mission… I think the
pedagogical potential of Niihka is so much greater than Blackboard, because Blackboard …was not as
responsive to teacher and student needs.” Amit Shukla, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering,
agrees. “One of the main reasons I embrace Niihka is that we have the ability to customize locally,” he
says, to respond to changing user needs.
Such capacity for adaptation is important in today’s challenging and competitive academic environment,
as Dr. McKee explains. “People often put technology here and pedagogy here, but they are absolutely,
intimately connected, and for pedagogy to work, technology needs to work and it needs to work in
pedagogically effective ways… Even in the pilot, people say ‘is it possible to do this? Is it possible to do
that?’ and the response from IT is so much faster than Blackboard, whereas with Blackboard, because
[support] was outsourced, we would say ‘this feature is awful’ and all IT could say is ‘we know but we
cannot do anything about it.’”
The Niihka pilot program comprises 62 courses that involve approximately 2800 students on the Oxford,
Hamilton, and Middletown campuses. The interviews aimed to capture the experiences of faculty
participating in the pilot regarding how Niihka has benefited their classes, their challenges with using
Niihka, and their tips (based on their acquired knowledge) about practical aspects of migrating to Niihka.
Overall, faculty members reported their experiences with Niihka during the pilot as positive. “[Niihka] is
the best development I can imagine” says Dr. Shukla, “Overall, my use of it has been good. I am pleased
about the whole experience. Everything is intuitive.”
A recurring sentiment expressed is that Niihka seems easy to use. “I find Niihka really easy to use and
figure out” says Dr. McKee. “What I and my students are really liking about Niihka is, [it] streamlines so
many of the processes; the new site design is a little bare-bones, but it works and it’s clear…” Mr. Jason
Millard, Associate Librarian and Instructor with the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies
(AIMS), finds that one-minute paper assignments are easier to review and revisit. He also thinks content
editing features are a lot easier to use, and that Niihka runs faster than Blackboard.
Pilot instructors have also identified non-academic benefits of Niihka. For instance, with reference to the
college of Arts and Science, Dr. McKee expressed the hope that “if Niihka’s portfolio can work for
student learning and assessment, we wouldn’t need Chalk & Wire for the College Composition Program
at $15 a student, which would save a ton of money.” Dr. McKee also sees benefits to students: “I have a
couple of students who are in several different Niihka pilots …, and anecdotally what I have heard so
far …[ is that] because there are so many fewer buttons to click, … they seem really more comfortable
and adapted to using it…”
However, some interviewees think the interface, while clean and effective, is boring. According to Dr.
McKee, “when I look at other schools using Niihka, [the interface] is more robust. On the other hand, at
least it’s clean and clear, and that’s important, but it’s dull.”
So, how have the pilot faculty been using Niihka in their pilot classes? The user-responsive environment,
together with various usability improvements in Niihka, have no doubt been a factor in encouraging
some of the pilot faculty to try several online learning features that they did not use in Blackboard, such
as assignment turn-ins and online-quizzes. Dr. McKee admitted that she “was a very limited Blackboard
user”, but that she now uses “the communication tools, the drop box, the resources folders (to share
work and upload readings), and assignments (because I love the mass download)”, and is especially
excited about working with the portfolio tools: “I’m really eager to see that portfolio tool, because the
portfolio tool in Bb just sucked …and I’ve seen sample Niihka portfolios from Virginia Tech, and they
were really impressive, so I’m excited to see that.”
Interestingly, Dr. Shukla thinks CLE systems work best when they play a facilitating role, unobtrusively
supporting what instructors already do and would like to do. Thus, in his view, “Niihka would have been
successful if nobody notices it.” Dr Shukla instructs his pilot classes in pretty much the same way as he
did before. “What does change is that I use Niihka for more of the learning components that I formerly
did manually. Engineering is very collaborative, and collaboration is very well supported in Niihka…”
The instructors also shared their tips for a successful switchover to Niihka. All the interviewees migrated
their content with the fresh start method (where content is downloaded from Bb and uploaded to
Niihka manually, under the control of the user) because they felt more comfortable and safe with that
approach. As Dr Shukla explains, he chose this approach to avoid “corrupting” their Niihka experience
with a Blackboard mindset . Thus, it appears that this approach, though manual, is easy enough for the
average faculty member. However, as Shukla notes, “a seamless, three-click automatic migration
process is [also] available.” And, of course, there is the option to request a white-glove migration, where
trained reps re-create Blackboard course under the guidance of IT.
However users want to migrate to Niihka and use it, Dr. McKee advises: “you do initially have to see it
and learn the basics, [to] get an overview…. It’s helpful to have a quick overview”. Mr. Millard
encourages users to “Experiment with multiple approaches to accomplishing things to find out the
method that works best for [them, and to] ask questions.” And Dr. Shukla admonishes faculty members
“to see Niihka as a tool helping us to adjust to and serve our students in the best way.”
There are a few challenges that users may have to watch out for, as explained by the instructors. Dr.
McKee hopes to keep exploring the system to get a handle on the commenting feature, and Mr. Millard
thinks putting together reading lists is a challenge in Niihka due to a non-intuitive navigation structure
associated with custom external pages. For Dr. Shukla, “the interface is clean initially, but is cluttered
when you log in, though I don’t know whether the view can be customized… there are too many options
that have to be set in order to use some features.” He wishes that a simplified interface option could be
provided, and thinks it may be useful to have the option of setting up a new course by simply choosing
to use default recommended settings.
Time will tell whether these issues will indeed be problematic. In the meantime, such comments show
that even tech-savvy users sometimes need help. With the responsiveness of the technical support, it
should be easy to dive in and seek help whenever you need it. And, you don’t have to use features you
are not comfortable with. “I don’t use the grade book; I really like having my grade book in my own
EXCEL spreadsheet… I never used the grade book in Blackboard as well; I just don’t trust grade books in
Learning Management Systems” says Dr. McKee.
Since the deadline for moving content from Blackboard to Niihka is August 31, 2011, it is advised to start
migrating to Niihka early. However, there is no need to rush; users can do a bit at a time. As Dr. McKee
puts it, “…every week or so I nibble off a tiny little piece of it because I just don’t have the time to tackle
it all at once.”