With the best of intentions:

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With the best of intentions

• First semester experiences using BlackBoard

Presented by David Winograd Tony Betrus SUNY
Potsdam
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Presentation Overview

• Planning and Acquisition
• What were the faculty needs?
• What were the campus expectations?
• Why course management software?
• Implementation
• Dress rehearsal
• First semester rollout
• Our support personnel
• Recommendations

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Faculty Needs

• The ability to place syllabi on the web for on
  and off-campus access.
• A communication medium to replace newsgroups.
• A file transfer medium
• We were using e-mail attachments primarily
• Class submissions and class files were
  introduced, but did not have off-campus access.

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Faculty Needs

• As many features as possible ultimately.
• After some consultation, administration decided
  what was best for faculty.
• No needs assessment was conducted.
• It was decided that whatever we did, we should
  start small, and learn from our experiences.

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Expectations

• Keep current with other institutions.
• If were not moving forward, were moving
  backward.
• Replace and integrate currently existing
  services.
• Web syllabi
• Newsgroups
• File transfer

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Expectations

• Some sort of Distance Education thingy.
• Enrollment increase
• Were in a rural area, so it could decrease
  students inconvenience (driving time).
• Part-time students are large of our population,
  and well get more part-time students if the
  inconvenience factor is lessened.

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Why Course Management Software?

• Provosts Initiative
• Campus was providing services that were
  piecemeal
• Were going to get left behind
• So course management software is the solution.

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But which course management software do we choose?

• What were our choices?
• FirstClass
• TopClass
• Webct
• BlackBoard
• Why Blackboard?

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Indeed, Why BlackBoard?

• Sold as having
• Most features
• Least expensive
• Most stable
• Easiest learning curve
• The all-in-one package

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Implementation

• Software was purchased and available as early as
  Summer 2000.
• Promise of full on campus BlackBoard support for
  use by Fall 2000.
• But the server didnt come until November 2000. .
  . . oops
• Instead, the first semester course materials were
  housed at http//www.blackboard.com.

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Implementation The dress rehearsal

• Slow to no Internet connectivity.
• 1) BlackBoard was overloaded with new
  customers.
• 2) Our blazing internet speed on campus didnt
  help.
• This was totally unacceptable.
• This created a bad example for the students and
  faculty.

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Implementation The dress rehearsal

• Limited feature set
• BlackBoard.com uses version 2
• We had BlackBoard version 5 sitting in the box.
• No campus support.
• (remember, this was promised earlier)
• Blackboard wouldnt archive any courses housed on
  their server for use on local servers.

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Implementation 1st semester Rollout

• New BlackBoard certified Dell server.
• BlackBoard version 5
• Installed between Fall 2000 and Spring 2001
  semesters.
• Faculty hit the ground running in the Spring.
• Smashed straight into a wall of problems.

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ImplementationEquipment Problems

• Arcane authentication system.
• Froze at random
• If 3 or more people simultaneously tried to
  register for BlackBoard. The whole system froze,
  and wasnt available until it was reset. . .
  usually the next the day in the case of a night
  class.
• Gradebook malfunctioned
• Synchronous conferencing didnt work.

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Technical Support

• No technical support during class time (for
  classes meeting after 400 p.m.)
• In our case, this was all of them.
• Technical questions mired in a dual-layered
  bureaucracy.
• Questions were not directly addressed and
  normally went unanswered.

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Technical Support

• There were typical implementation bugs that one
  would expect from any software installation.
• The upgrade at month fixed many problems, and
  caused others.
• This wouldnt have been a problem if only a
  handful of people were using BlackBoard... we had
  much more than a handful.
• We planned for 5 people and ended up with 30.

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Instructional Support

• One person was put in charge.
• Some advanced IT background.
• Attended the national BlackBoard conference.
• Training consisted of being given the manual.
• Learned on the job, during the full
  implementation phase.

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Instructional Support

• Scheduled and conducted training sessions for
  faculty before the Spring 2001 semester.
• Sold BlackBoard through
• E-mail Campus wide e-mail Fall 2000 soliciting
  immediate BlackBoard implementation for anyone
  interested.
• This is exactly what we didnt want to happen.

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Instructional Support

• Actually provided technical support
• Provided no instructional support
• Efforts to form a peer-to-peer BlackBoard support
  group were blocked and later co-opted
• Overburdened herself.
• Too many faculty to support with limited
  resources.
• Many technical problems were beyond her control.
• Many faculty questions went unanswered.

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Recommendations

• It is critical, absolutely vital, that the
  demonstration projects be of the highest possible
  standard, since failure or mediocre results will
  have exactly the opposite effect from what is
  desired. For this reason it is imperative that
  financial, technological, and human resources be
  ruthlessly focussed. (Moore Kearsley, 1996).

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Recommendations

• Have a clear understanding of what you want to
  accomplish for your campus.
• Do a needs assessment.
• Do you really need a course management system?
• What are your goals and objectives?
• Gather experiences from other institutions.
• Have a timeline for partial and full
  implementation with significant stages identified.

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Recommendations

• Plan small, and build incrementally.
• Build from small successes
• Learn from problems
• Have sufficient, qualified, instructional and
  technical support personnel.
• Make sure you have strong administrative support.

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Thanks for coming!
Presentation available at http//www2.potsdam.edu
/educ/betrusak/aect2001/
Anthony Betrus, PhD betrusak_at_potsdam.edu
David Winograd, PhD winogrdm_at_potsdam.edu
Department of Information and Communication
Technology SUNY Potsdam http//www.potsdam.edu/edu
c/ict/home.htm