Thomas Session Notes

“What have you learned, Dorothy?” – The Scarecrow

Tuesday: Welcome Reception and Poster Session

• Asked Bb employee about when mobile apps will be ready for CE/Vista 8

• Off the record: it may be in Michael’s keynote address tomorrow

• {see slide 29}

• Wednesday 10:30

• Considering upgrading to Learn 9.1

• Here is an approach:

Get faculty excited about 9.1 to increase confidence in transitioning your courses from CE to Bb Learn 9.1

Planning and Change ManagementHardwareTestingData managementEnd user trainingAdmin readiness

Test all building blocks because they may not work the same

• Transitioning courses

• 1) Testing

Take a bunch of diverse courses to run through the migration tool

Decide what will need to be done to make it the way you want it

• 2) Make a crib sheet to make a migrated course a Bb 9.1

course

(who will do this?)

• 3) Supporting staff through the process

after transition, hold training sessions, show them new features

include tech guys in training for more technical questions

• This upgrade will be different. Training will be needed

• Create a slogan: "more pretty, less clicky"

• Many different kinds of training bits from 2-minute videos, half-hour

demos, to full training sessions

• Students didn't get any training - the interface is so easy. Other

colleges allowed guest/demo access to become familiar with UI.

• Another college provided student training on login page with faculty

and student resources pages.

• What were the bug issues? The notifications is strange. A few minor

bugs.

• Course Conversion tool. Ship course backups to Bb and they will

convert them. Expected major cleanup but turned out good.

• Training for faculty? Everybody gets the 2-hour training session

• Can get more in-depth/specialized sessions for those interested

• Give them a playground area

• Take advantage of resources provided by Bb

11:30 Disaster Recovery - Loss of Data is Always a Disastersee PPT file at: S:\COL\Blackboard 9\Disaster_Recovery_BBWorld.ppt

Locationhave backups in different locations

Document your process

Test your process

Types:

• Loss of some content or entire course

• whole courses

• data center power loss

• complete data center destroyed!

• Plan:Write a Plan! Someone else needs to be able to follow the plan

• Build a test system with a complete copy ofproduction data

app servercontent systemoracle db serverdatamake data backup each semester

• Test the planImprove the plan base on test resultsRepeat the testing for each plan at least

annually

• Export all gradebooks on a nightly basis

• Nightly RSYNC of Content system to disk, followed by tape backup

• Nightly incremental backup of Oracle DB (RMAN)

• Nightly incremental backup of all servers

• Weekly archive of all active Blackboard courses

• Weekly cold backup of Oracle DB

• End of semester archives of all Blackboard courses

• Tape backups are stored off site

Archive and backup strategies:

Redundancy:

• Blackboard application is load balanced across multiple servers

• Content system is on high availability SAN

• DB storage is on high availability SAN

• DB server has a standby

• Mirror DB storage and Content system to 2nd data center

• Dual 10G Ethernet and Fiber connections to both data centers

• Off site (long distance) disaster readiness site (USC)

Process for handling lost data, single or multiple course loss

• Faculty or Student reports data loss

• Help Desk or CRLT verifies data loss

• CRLT accesses weekly or EoS archive of the course

• CRLT restores lost data or entire course (up to 250 MB) via Blackboard System Admin panel

• CRLT passes course(s) to CSO if it’s > 250 MB

• CSO restores course(s) from weekly or EoS archives via command line interface

"Things happen inadvertently”CRLT: Customer Relations for Learning and Teaching

Blackboard Administrator Test Plan

• Test basic functionality of Blackboard from the Administrator point of view

• Log in, all tabs load successfully

• Create a course, modify a course, file upload

• Create a user, enroll a user, send email, use chat

• Un-enroll a user, drop a user, drop a course

• Must be run after every upgrade, new install, or new equipment deployment

Blackboard Teaching and Learning Test Plan

• Test usability of Blackboard from the Instructor and Student points of view

• Much more in depth than the Administrator Test Plan

• Utilize Help Desk, support staff, and students to assist in testing

• Must be run after every upgrade, new install, or new equipment deployment

Blackboard Instructor Test Plan

• Create a course, enroll students

• Create and email announcements

• Create a test and grade it

• Create a discussion board and modify

• Grade assignments and discussion board threads

• Copy a course

• Archive a course

• Restore a course

Blackboard Student Test Plan

• Respond to Discussion board threads and forums

• Attach a file to thread or forums

• Take a test

• Check grades

1:45Michael and Ray Keynote

• (see video)

4:15Different Approaches to Blackboard Learn 9: A Tale of Two Universities

• Saint Louis University:WebCT since 1999, Hosted CE8Banner SunGard Luminis LDIgoing to Bb 9.1 Self-Hosted!now they have staff, hardware to self-hostStill run CE8 ASPFall dev on new system, virtualizedlooking at 9.1? look at Snapshot toolSnapshot integrated with Banner

• Global approachAll users created (even staff)All courses created (unavailable)Request forms (using Google forms)

• Instructors can build their course and turn it on when they choose

• move from CE to 9.1 is much better than to 9.0

• making the change quick to avoid costs and confusion

• Why?

• contract ending5-year cost analysisSupport for “CE rapidly declining”9.1 has great new tools

Univ. of Pretoria (South Africa)

• Why change? How to change. What to change.

• National strategy for implementing Bb 9

• Why change? The environment has changed

• What has changed? student technical habits

• What must change? researched tool usage: poor implementation

• Convenience and Availability are very high in student concerns

• Align with institution: student retention

• Bb 9.1 Care Pack (templates, training materials, examples, contextualization)

• Help Resources. Are they being used?

• Use Elluminate. It works

• Opted for parallel use of two systems

• put all students into computer literacy module

5:15Moving to the Virtual World orHow I learned to stop worrying and Love the Cloud

Thursday

8:30Bb Learn Product Vision and Roadmap for Vista

• Ramsey Chambers - Blackboard products

• make sure the Vista platform is supported through the remainder of its life

• January 2013 (but talk to your account rep.)

• [see video]

• Take Aways:

• 40% of efforts over next 18 months on maintenance of NG codebase; fixing bugs

• 20% geared toward refinement: design issues

• 40% new feature development: inspired by Vista capabilities

More Efficient And Effective Solutions

• Foster Student Engagement

• Support Educator Efficiency

• Connect Instruction With Institutional Improvement

• Deliver Open And Extensible Learninge.g., open database capability

• We will continue to invest energies in these principles

Where We’ve Been

• 10 Countries

• 3,000+ Suggestionssuggestions.blackboard.com

• 100+ Phone Conversations

• 20+ Client Visits

• 20+ Events

Where We Are Headed

• Don’t expect 100% Parity

• Bring over things that are most important to you(What the Vista community has agreed on that is needed going forward)

• A lot is taken from the Angel community and there is actually a lot of overlap

• We will be delivering this against the 9.1 codebasethrough a series of Service Packs (there is no 9.2, there is no 10)

Vista Inspirations (Angel as well)• Gradable Rubrics (later this year)

• Question Re-grading

• Course Standards and Objectives

• Enhanced Course Insight

• Rich Text Editorsre-write WYSIWYG editor

new math editor

round-trip HTML editing

• Multiple Section Support

• SIS Integration (SIS feed converter: LIS standard)partnering with SunGard: pure implementation

• Enhanced Standards Support

• Multi-Institution Capabilities

How To Get Involved

• Join the Blackboard Idea ExchangeProduct Development PartnershipsUser TestingBetaSuggestion Box

• Bug Squad

• http://www.blackboard.com/communities

The Future of Vista

• Tech Stack UpdateJava 1.6, Oracle 11gR2, WebLogic 10.0

• Blackboard MobileTM Learn for VistaCE/Vista 8Available end of 2010*Same pricing options as for Classic clientsSimilar capabilities

* Subject to change without notice

Next Steps

• Get engaged in helping define the futureBIE and Bug Squad

• Schedule a meeting with your Account Rep.Get more detailed informationUnderstand how your institution’s use cases map to the roadmap

(e.g., Section Merge can replace Cross-Listing)

Start building a plan

• http://www.blackboard.com/upgradecenter

• ramsey.chambers@blackboard.com

Q&A• Design capabilities?

The re-write of the HTML editor will have better support for CSS which will help with layout, etc.“Adaptive Release” will be an enhanced version of Selective Release for individualized learning

• End of Life Dates: Official: January 2013would like you to begin building plans to make the upgrade sooner rather than laterTalk with your acct. rep. They will work with you.

• Common Cartridge: import/export? Yes, if Ray has anything to say about it. Migration?Try the free migration tool to see how it worksReports from those who’ve tried conversion tools say it’s “significantly better” than for 9.0, but not perfect.

Q&A (cont.)• Real-time integration: when a student adds a

course, they want to see it, not wait for a batch process [applause] We want to support both real-time and batch processing so it fits within an institution’s resources and business model

• Deal-breakers: dummy student, assessment ends when timer reaches 0 [applause]Dummy student, per se, is not currently on the roadmap. Assessment ends would fall into “enhancement” category so submit your suggestion. We understand it is a high priority.

Q&A (cont. 2)

• After implementation of these deal-breakers, we end up with only one year to migrate, a very short time window.Again, engage with your acct. rep. There is some flexibility. It has to be an individualized situation.

• From Vista to 9 is really a migration. Timing is critical to acquire and support hardware, budgeting, etc. Can you speak to multi-institution at all?Not in this room. Your account rep. has that information and can sit down and have that conversation. Some things will be delivered earlier, some later. We want to keep you informed as appropriate. Hearing of client needs may influence when multi-institution capabilities become available. Review our sizing guides; that would be a great start.

9:30Doing More With Less: Innovations in Online LearningEmbry-Riddle Aeronautical Universitysee PowerPoint file at: S:\COL\Blackboard 9\Doing_More_with_Less_2010_Post.pptx

• Strategies:

• 3 P's:Peoplelook at your department structureunderstand workloads and skill setsmaximize strengths, minimize weaknesses

Strategies (cont.)

• Planningoften misunderstoodavoid planning into paralysis"Keep it simple. Keep it customer focused.“Sign off by all involved (lack of

communication)

• ProcessWhat are we doing manually that a system

could handle for us?What can we make more efficient without

compromising quality?Work smarter!encourage looking at ourselves

• Why would one student love taking online classes and another dislike them??

disciplinelearning stylescourse quality

• What are some of the solutions?life circumstance - when to fit this in?talk to counselor

Embry-Riddle's "innovations"• Mobility & Collaboration|

handheld devicesElluminate, Wimba, etc.

• We're providing toolsShow people how to use them!train more, market these resources

• Faculty development courses (mandatory)Instructional Use of Blackboard with LabTeaching at their institutionSupporting Online LearnersDeveloping Online Courses

• Add faculty oversight to committees especially teaching technologies

• Mentoring programs

• Increasing blended learning

• Increasing online course offerings and quality

• Accessibility! - every course has a Bb course shell

• All faculty must use Blackboard.

• Use Elluminate for collaboration

• Course templatesconsistent brandingannouncements

assignment datesinstructorcopyright

discussion boardsexamsgrade booksyllabus

• Use "Start Here“

• Assessment, Continuous Improvement (like QM)EvaluationsQuality Team

• Student Orientation (template)how to be an effective online learner

• Leveraging BbUse of SafeAssign (saves $32,500)

• Student Testimonials

External opportunities

• Slideshare

• MIT OpenCourseware

• eReaders (students would not use them if you ask)

• Stanford Engineering Everywhere

• apply to the Drucker Institute award

• NSSE Natl. Survey of Student EngagementAssessment for Improvement: tracking Student Engagement Over Time

• ECAR - Educause Center for Applied ResearchStudy of under graduate students and IT

• Sloan-c.org Learning On Demand

• Blackboard Community of Practice

• User Groups

• Conferences

• BIE

• Connections

• Exemplary Courses

• Edugarage

• Listservs

• Partnership (with Bb)

11:00What's the Difference:Moving from Bb CE/Vista 8 to Bb Learn 9 and 9.1

• Kathy Savillehttp://mupfc.marshall.edu/~savillek/Bb9/comparechart.html

• Your all's homework assignment is to detect any incorrect entries in the chart

• Everybody wants chart to go from 8 directly to 9.1

• OnDemand Center docs: http://www.blackboard.com/resources/learn/Bb_Learn_91_Datasheet_CEVista.pdf

• Blackboard cohort courses

• transitioning from 8 to 9.1?

• join a Bb Cohort course; meets once per week in WebEx

• Upgrade Center, next start in Sept.

• Sys Admin heavy but good information

• Learning Modules migrate very well into 9.1

• Mail tool is now called Messages but you can also e-mail out, (but not back in)

12:00Kaltura - Open Source VideoThe future of Media in Blackboard

• Solutions@kaltura.com

• Key trends in media:files are largeneed new set of tools

• Challenges of Video in Bb

– USC - have an LMS in case of disaster situation and students can't get to campus

– have students become digital journalists/content creators– uploading video to Bb is not good– Bb does not have a video player, Flash videos won't work

on Apple products– Video 2.0 (collaborative multi-media)

• Tools:

– browser-based editors– upload media– transcode formats– various applications

• Demo of Kaltura Building Block

– blackboard.kaltura.org– media admin can control playlist– in Tools menu: added "My Media" gallery– can edit title, tags, description– assign video to a course– students can view media but can't change it once it is in

the course– approval process to make video available to the course

– students can use the media elsewhere– new content type: Media Presentation– video doesn't get uploaded to Bb, it is streamed from

Kaltura.org– 1 of 2 modes: run locally hosted on your own machine

(requires about 6 machines)– stream it: (Hosted) for – fully 508 player: closed captioning, screen reader friendly,

subscribing to captioning services– permissions control: what's public, not– Google WebM? codec (open-source)– Other systems? web services APIs– Javascript library: 1-line javascript include code to the

library, so will work on iPad– Kaltura Exchange– Open Video Alliance (umbrella org that care about

multimedia)– HTML5video.org

• system can detect your device and adjust bit rate

• need Bb and Community to have all OS tools downloadable

• offer support services, delivery

• host locally with enterprise license

•

• July 27 2:00 pm EDT webinar:

• http://bit.ly/clanhK

• Try building block: http://site.kaltura.com/Blackboard.html

2:15Managed Hosting Quarterly Report

• 7-day 50.43%

• 30-day 87.39%

• 90-day 98.8%

• hired 2 CSEs, 1 manager (Travis Castleman - Manager of MH Support)

• increased Sutherland headcount 5 TSMs working alongside SME TSMs

Acronym Chart

• CHM: Complex Hosting Manager

• SME: Subject Matter Experts - Tier I & II

• TSM: Technical Support Manager - Tier I

• CSE: Client Support Engineer - Tier II

• ICM Handoffs - Internal Case Manager

• PD: Product Development

• Some institutions take production courses and put them on their test server

• Course restoration can take weeks

• Leveraging virtual technology AP (Advanced Platform) can bring restores down to hours or minutes

• Clients need to be open communicating to Bb

• Clients currently on 9.1: 325

• Clients currently on 8: 338

• Sunday maintenance request: Service Improvement Projects (no interruptions)

• Annual report to better show work and improvements for our stakeholders

• Engagement Plans (9.1)

• Silver Gold Platinum Diamond

– Silver: small-scale entry-lever online (K-12)– Gold: standard enterprise hosting (raise to 99.8 uptime)– Platinum: Predictive Tech Lifecycle Management– Diamond: Adaptive Partnership for Lg-scale growth &

sustainability (complex hosting mgmt, full package)

• no physical cap on user storage or environment

• building blocks: test, stage, production best practice methodology

• SIS? either client keeps up with responsibility or client turns it over to consulting

• SLA guarantees…

Managed Hosting Quarterly Report (cont.)

• SP4: GA has been tested thoroughly, ask the question on Listserv of those who have added the Re-release

– Users with apostrophes in their name could not use Chat– 76/30363 have ‘ in their name; VST-5274 patch fixes it

• Consult with the Upgrade Center

3:15Making the Leap to Bb Learn

• NEEDS ANALYSIS

– No notes

• PLANNING

– Course Integration with SIS– automated course creation– enrollment and access mgmt

• SSO to mult. Systems

– from Bb

• Content Management

– eliminate content redundancy (copy courses over and over)

– content sharing

• Sense of Academic community

– eLearning Portal– Special Interest Groups– Student Organizations

• Retention

– Automated Student Monitoring (early warning system - involve Advising)

• DECISION MAKING

• Preparation:

– Identify your teams and their members• DE• IT• Blackboard

• Blackboard Consultation

– Define Objectives– Timeline– Team leadership– Webinars

• Orientation Workshop

– Bb Learn Overview– Facilitation Planning for Upgrade Path– What's New in 9.1

• IMPLEMENTATION

• Phase 1

– Beta Pilot Group– 12 faculty selected– small enrollment courses

• Faculty training

– no batch needs, use GUI to convert courses– clean up, courses came over "very well and organized";

some faculty did their own cleanup– 4 two-hour sessions (use Blackboard licensed material but

customized them)– Thank the volunteers - made a cake, give certificate,

encouragement gift for synchronous learning and weekly webinar attendance, web cams gift

• Phase 2

• 70 faculty selected, not just small-enrollmentmixed types

• Integration of:

– section merge– grade extract– SSO

• Phase 3

– public promotion and marketing– communication collaboration– New Semester Procedures publicized (ongoing)– Batch conversion - loaded on drive and sent to MH for

them to batch convert– automated shell creation

• New Procedures

• Each Semester

– course creation– automated instructor/TA assignment– automated student enrollment

• Provide template - every shell can have template shell or import content

• has "Start Here"

• Course welcome page

• Faculty can export/import content

• Faculty can switch on to make course available

• Access is denied after grades are posted to SIS (PeopleSoft)

• Faculty course Access

• 2 semesters Current, and future

• course backed up and removed from server following cycle

• archives: 1 week after official grade posting to SIS

• Grade Extract

– Bb Grade Center– optional grade reporting column

4:00Blackboard Upgrade Center

• Talked to developer who gave me the details of why initial SP4 was pulled

• WebLogic multi-node license would not verify license and systems could only be up 24 hours at a time

• Hosted: It's been fixed. SP4 is fine now

• 9.1: Chat still sucky, use Wimba if you need synchronous communication or, better yet, have instructor send students to Google Chat session URL

• WYSIWYG Editor (formerly HTML Creator) now written in JavaScript, not a Java applet

4:15Managing Transition from CE to Learn 9Stephen Vickers - U of Edinburgh, Chris Baxley - W. Carolina U.see PDF at: S:\COL\Blackboard 9\WebCT2Learn9.pdf

• Background

– Both using Vista 8– U of E : no plans yet– WCU: Vista available until June 2011

• Transition Issues

• Significant Change!

– Hardware– db config– web server config, etc.– course migrations– Documentation– training

• Transition Period

• Options:

– both systems available– turn off old system– Pilot– Phased

• must maintain ease of access to both system

– select primary– provide SSO from primary to secondary

• WebCT -> Learn 9

• login2 PowerLink with B2SSO or AutoSignon Building Block (stephen wrote these)

• SSO solution only PowerLink to Bb Learn Building Block

– creates a URL with UID and shared secret– user IDs may be different on systems

• link to 9 on CE main page

• Learn 9 -> WebCT

• Can use Learn 9 as a portal to get to CE courses in a module

• B2WebCT Building Block

– Order of page components– Specify which components are displayed– Specify which options can be overridden by the user– Supports different login user IDs for both system– User-defined layouts (via XSLT files)

• Further Developments

• Course List

– sort order– Grouping– limit by term

• Display content of announcements

• Internationalization

• Grades?

• Remove Community System requirement

• FREE and will be available next month from OSCELOT

• QA

• Bb will sign this so that Community System is not required

• Link to other system could be from right inside a course

• Uses Integration Partner field in SSASECT to know which system BB9 or WEBCT

• Learn 9 does not yet have multi-institution

• uses standard ISAPI call - reduce timeouts by not listing instructors, say, on the remote system

Friday8:30I Already Have That ... Can I Use It?

• http://tinyurl.com/ialreadyhavethat (Bb9 guest access)

• are using SoftChalk (one of the few additional things they use)

• iSpring Free 5.5 - converts PPT to Flash for free

• PPT converted to PDF, PowerPoint Show, Flash, mp3 file, Photo Story

• SlideShare

• AuthorStream

• Jodix iPod Video Converter

• Using HTML Code

• Putting up YouTube Video is easy

• Widgets

• NBC Widget

• WidgetBox

• Google Gadgets

• Yahoo Widgets

• VozMe - converts text to speech in mp3

• xtranormal.com text to speech movie

9:30Vision for Blackboard Learn(Blackboard Learn Product Roadmap)James Owen, Dir. Product ManagementBret Dennis, Sr. Product Manager

• "What we intend to develop in the next 18 months."

• Where we've been

– No notes

• Our desired destination

• more efficient and effective solutions

– foster student engagement– support educator efficiency– connect instruction with institutional improvement– deliver open and extensible learning

• higher quality

– maintenance - stay on top of the bugs– refinement - "functions as designed" problems – will fix these

in service packs (more rapid, regular release)– new features - or features that need significantly

enhancement

• improvements across the platform

– course delivery– community engagement

• 9.1SP1: settings stay in place when moving around, fewer clicks– content management– outcomes assessment - more reduction of clicks– SP1: more than 50 enhancements

• Our intended path

• Grading

– educators need efficiency in grading large numbers of students and meeting deadlines for feedback and grades

– Needs Grading page (not in the Grade Center)• sortable by date, student, category, item name, or max.

points– Regrade Option

• make assessments easier to manage and to drive more accurate student evaluations

– Gradable Rubrics• educators need to evaluate learner work with consistent

criteria and common achievement expectations.• grades are automatically put into the Grade Center, can be

made available to students at the discretion of instructor

• Course Standards and Objectives

– Give educators the ability to create standards and objectives in the course, align them to content, and report on them

• Course Reporting

– provide better support for remediating student learning gaps, using information to drive immediate action

• detailed activity reporting• performance reporting - against aligned standards and goals• item analysis

– above three drive better student outcomes

• Rich Content Editor

– provide an enhanced online content creation and editing experience for all users

• improved text editor• improved math editor• round-trip HTML editing

– will be AJAX based - no Java

• Course Relationships

– better support management of course that are offered within multiple programs and those with multiple sections that are burdened by administrative and individual course interaction complexity

• Individualized Learning

– learners need flexible ways of visualizing their pace, progress and choices for navigating through course materials that are personalized to meet their needs.

• Learning Object Repository

– provide better institutional support to consistently scale quality content and best practices across course and improve educator efficiency with reusing and updating learning objects across courses.

• Evidence Collection and Reporting

– better utilize student work collected in Course delivery for program assessment samples, thus reducing time-consuming and intrusive program assessment processes to faculty and students

– automatically pull course data into outcomes and compare against rubric

• Multi-Institution Capabilities (Community System)

– more granular control

• SIS Integration evolution

– simplify setup and administration of student information system standards based integration to efficiently manage data exchange between enterprise data systems

– SunGard native

• Standards Support

– enhance standards support offerings that simplify integration between enterprise systems, learning tools, and content

• Common Cartridge• LTI• LIS• SCORM• CAS• Shibboleth

• Improving Change Management

– Blackboard Help• Find answers in seconds

• http://suggestions.blackboard.com/

• Q&A

• include Dreamweaver-like functionality

– add-ons

• What about Learning Modules - still not behaving like CE/Vista

– if it's something we can refine, or a major rewrite– too many clicks

• Can now batch download grades - can we Upload grades?

– definitely on the radar

• Course standards and objectives? Please make them easy to handle

• Tracking has been impacting performance

• Q&A (cont.)

• SIS Integration - do you have to have Luminis product?

– just need the message broker

• BTBE - new doc type Strict

– browser not recognizing fonts– language packs

• Announcements in 9.0 no date restrictions

– intend to add that back

• Legacy code - Win Xanadu only uses _blank

• SIS integration have Luminis portal, need LDAP server?

– no - only need for SSO

• Q&A (cont. 2)

• Grade Center - are you planning to enhance the analysis tool?

– that will be part of the….

• Known Issues document - can you make it less confusing [applause]

– we've shared the same frustration

• Any thought given to workflow tools in the Content System?

– it is on our roadmap for 2011– it may be that Suggestions be a part of the Bug Squad

format

And what did I get for my trouble?