Blackboard Institute
TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT | COMPLETED INITIATIVE

JANUARY 2017 RESULTS: An initiative for a one-week intensive institute was created to maximize the use of Blackboard (Bb) Learn. A faculty cohort from the College of Liberal Arts (LARTs) participated in this institute and, as a result, this group has become much more self-sufficient in the use of Bb and its tools with a preliminary assessment of “exemplarily.” For example, the use of Bb’s Retention Center (an early alert system in Bb that identifies at-risk students) is at an institutional level of 4.5%, while this same tool has been adopted by 22% of the LARTs faculty cohort. When compared to all instructors using Bb, the LARTs faculty cohort data shows a significant increase in the use of all of the following Bb tools: assignment, collaboration assessments, survey, test, blog, journal, adaptive release, course content, course statistics, and multimedia. As expected, the use of multimedia in Bb courses taught by the LARTs faculty cohort is by far the area most impacted. Digital interactions, video introductions, audio, and animations produced by Academic Technologies have made Bb courses much more engaging.

MAY and JUNE 2017 RESULTS: Completed 2 new cohorts with Biological Sciences and School of Pharmacy. Currently disseminating data.

AUGUST 2017: New cohort with faculty who teach Large-Class Seminars and College of Education.