JISC RSC LondonBlackboard Regional User GroupThursday 20th January 2005

Welcome to Kingston!

2JISC RSC London Blackboard RUG 20th January 2005

Programme for this morning

10.00 Overview of the day10.15 BlackBoard Update

11.00 Group Q&A session 11.30 Break 11.45 College presentations:

Westminster Kingsway College

Richmond-upon-Thames College

12.30 Next Steps - Phil Butler, JISC 12.45 lunch

3JISC RSC London Blackboard RUG 20th January 2005

Blackboard in the JISC RSC area 12-15 Colleges Generally popular Taken institutions forward Promoted e-learning Embedded in some

curriculum areas

4JISC RSC London Blackboard RUG 20th January 2005

Dinosaur or dragonfly?St

reng

ths

Wea

knes

ses

Oppo

rtuni

ties

Thre

ats

Ease-of-useFlexibilityMomentum

Some functional limitationsTCOStudent control

E-/personalised learning & 14-19 agendas NLN products and services

Open source VLEsAlternative LMSsPortal solutions

5JISC RSC London Blackboard RUG 20th January 2005

Some questions…1. What is the long-term role and function of proprietary VLE

solutions such as Blackboard given the emergence of other commercial content management and portal technologies (such as Microsoft's SharePoint server) and the increasing popularity of free and open-source tools (such as Moodle)?

2. What are the priorities in Blackboard's own product development strategy over the next 3-5 years? With resources going into development of expensive enterprise solutions such as the Community Portal where does this leave users of the basic edition of the Blackboard Learning System, the majority of whom are in FE?

3. How is Blackboard addressing the particular needs and applications of the post-16 teaching and learning community in the UK? How, for example, can it accommodate NLN (and other IMS content packages), QTI assessment materials (such as those generated by TOIA) and e-portfolios?