No news is good news right? Maybe! Or maybe not...

1. Creating Awareness through Email

One of the tasks I put on my calendar is to send out "beginning of the semester" and "end of the semester" reminders for faculty. These reminders contain the basics of course copy with links to tip sheets and tutorials as well as best practices for faculty in the saving of their course content, gradebooks, etc. 

In these reminder emails, I know that some of the faculty reading the email will not be users of Blackboard, so I attempt to focus the theme of the email on how easy it is to get started and to perform basic functions.  I also put in a teaser periodically of something cool coming up.  For example, I highlight our Teaching, Learning, and Technology Showcase (mentioned in #4 below) and occasionally I'll include some student survey feedback on how much they like it that faculty use Blackboard.  Finally, I'll also add a teaser such as: "Want to know who your students are for next semester? Login today and view the student photo roster!".

In the end, these short and brief semester emails let faculty know the basics and faq's (which in turn helps fend off some of the help desk calls we get) while also encouraging faculty that aren't using Bb, to join in!

Finally, on occasion, I'll target faculty who have never logged into Blackboard and I'll also send them an email of encouragement and link them to our upcoming training sessions.  The tone of these emails are meant to be encouraging and to inform the faculty and make them aware of support resources and assistance that is available.

2. Creating Awareness though Campus Publications

Another resource I have used is to leverage our existing communication channels such as: "GRCC Today" and "The Collegiate".  GRCC Today is an all staff email that goes out with highlights from everything from street closings due to construction and upcoming news and events.  We place upcoming training sessions for Blackboard in this communication, as well as notices about upcoming conferences such as miBUG, BbWorld, and the TLT Showcase.

The Collegiate is the student newspaper, and we have worked with student writers and the advisor for the program on highlighting faculty that are taking an innovative approach with Blackboard.  We have also used this communication resource as a way to introduce features such as the iPhone and Facebook Blackboard Sync applications.

Using existing publications such as these can be another great way to share with your stakeholders about what is happening in Blackboard.  It's really a nice way to spread out the communication so that it doesn't seem to always come from the "Distance Learning Department" or some other location.

3. Creating Awareness through Recognition

While attending various conferences through the year, I'll often grab a few more "giveaways" in the vendor hall.  These giveaways are useful in our faculty training sessions and also for targeted "Thank You Notes".  Periodically, I'll go through and find the top active faculty on our Blackboard system and send them a short and small token of appreciation for leveraging Blackboard in their teaching.  In the interoffice mail envelope, I'll add in a pen, button, stress worm, etc. along with the letter to the faculty member who is using Blackboard.  It's a small touch, but it really helps to establish an environment where the faculty know they are appreciated for putting in the extra effort.

In addition, throughout the year that are various times on the server where access is lower.  Say, Spring Break, Christmas, or other holidays.  One of the strategies I've used in the past is to take a record of those faculty that logged in during this time period and send them a quick email to say "thank you" for taking the time to login to Blackboard over the holiday break to respond to students.

Finally, I will also send out an email when faculty take an extra step and make their courses available early to students before the semester start date.  This shows that the faculty members are prepared, engaged, and what is even better, students can get early access to their course and the materials so that they can be prepared for the first day of class.

It is worth mentioning that you wouldn't want to over communicate and "spam" faculty with such email.  But in balance, and sporadically throughout the year, this type of email communication contributes to an environment that is more dynamic and at the same time keeps everyone "plugged in" while also building an effective rapport.

4. Creating Awareness through Special Events

Every year we take the time to plan a day where faculty can come together around the topic of technology and teaching.  We call this event the: "Teaching, Learning, and Technology Showcase (TLT Showcase)".  The underlying purpose is really to get faculty out of their classrooms and offices and talking with each other face-to-face.  It's an opportunity as well for faculty to learn from each other while also being recognized for their innovative approaches to applying technology to teaching and learning. 

Photo from GRCC's TLT Showcase

The TLT Showcase is run as an "electronic" poster session so that faculty presenters really don't need to prepare anything formal... they just show up and be willing to talk to other faculty about how they are using blocks and wikis in their Blackboard course, how they are reaching students through podcasting, etc.  It's a great event that is becoming quite popular.   Whats more, this event helps create awareness of how the campus is benefiting from using Blackboard!

5. Name yours! 

How does your campus get the word about about faculty and what they are doing to meet student's needs?  Add a comment and share your idea as well!

Here is an end of a semester checklist for your online course.

Gradebook

 

• Complete all grading
• Set-up/or verify all calculated columns are working correctly
• Set-up/or verify letter grade column is working correctly
• Scan columns in the grade book and look for anything that is out of place.

Students who have blank scores
Particular assignment missing a lot of scores

• Turn in Grades

 

 

Reflection

 

• What worked well in the course?
• What did not work as planned?
• What technical difficulties did I or my students have?
• What areas of the course would I like to improve?
• What content or activities would I like to add?

 

Schedule time to work on the course to make improvements.  Take advantage of instructional designers, e-learning support specialists, media production and graphic artists to improve your course.  If you found some technical difficulties that your students had, visit with your Blackboard support staff on campus and get their help in resolving what those issues are.

 

 

See the End of Semester Blog Post for more information and explanation http://connections.blackboard.com/posts/694c0f42b2

This effective practice documents provides 8 great ideas for supporting faculty in their e-learning efforts.  

Summary

In a recent conversation I had with a faculty member, she stated that she needed to be able to call upon technology experts to help her with her technology and teaching needs, just like she is called upon to consult in the area of her expertise. Faculty want to be as self sufficient as possible, they just need the experts to point them in the right direction, give them advise about the best way to proceed, and the best tool and method to make things happen.  You can be that person.

 

 

Eight Ideas for supporting Faculty

 

Fully online and Hybrid courses take a lot of effort to create.  It is not as easy as it looks and often times faculty are left to do the brunt of it.  Over the past 12 years of e-learning, many great ideas for supporting faculty have evolved.  These have been adapted to meet the needs of faculty, and the size of the support staff at many institutions.

 

1.  Show and Tell.  Faculty who are new to e-learning want to see examples of what their colleagues are doing.  Some institutions have show and tell sessions and invite faculty to come show their own courses, while others get permission to show courses and an instructional designer or other e-learning support person will show them off.

2.  Online course.  There are some institutions that require instructors who wish to use Blackboard, to go through an online course created for teaching them how to use the software.  This gets instructors into the very software they will use, and they get an opportunity to use the very tools their students will.  If done properly, it will give instructors ideas on what is possible.

3.  Faculty Mentors.  Smaller schools without large support staff have use the Faculty Mentor model with great success. The core Blackboard support staff on campus will train faculty from various departments and then they work with faculty within their department to mentor and train them.  This can be very successful, but it can also put a heavy burden on the mentors.  Selecting the mentors is the key to success and it is usually early adopters who have a passion for this technology.

4.  Online tutorials.  Putting easy to follow self help documents and tutorials online can really help faculty go it on their own.  Utah State University has had great success creating both text and video/audio based tutorials for faculty who are using Blackboard Vista.  You can see some examples here. http://it.usu.edu/tutorials.

5.  Use Templates.  Having a general course design and plan promotes consistency throughout the University, and makes it easy for faculty to get started.  Instead of having to start from scratch and spend a lot of time playing around, faculty and instructors can focus on creating content.  One school estimates it saves 25% - 30% of online development time by having a course template/shell available.

6.  Build it for them.  Faculty time, especially those on the tenure/research track is very valuable and limited.  Why not build the entire course for them.  Use the templates and a good checklist to sit down with them and chart out a plan for the course.  Commit them to get you the content on a timeline, and then build it for them.  Use examples of other classes to show them what the end result will be, and customize where needed to meet the learning objectives of the course and each unit. 

7.  Online Office Hours.  Just like faculty have office hours, you can provide excellent support to them by having online office hours.  There are even examples in consortia where each institution takes a turn monitoring online office hours.

8.  Bring technology support together.  Supporting the development of e-learning requires graphic artists, web designers, course developers, instructional designers and media specialists.  If these are in different groups, it makes it harder to get the job done. Experience shows that when these experts are not part of the e-learning group (the group supporting the faculty with Blackboard technology) then they “don’t get it,” and may not be able to provide the best solutions.  Experience shows that when these experts work hand in hand with the faculty, and instructional designers/Bb support staff, then the outcome is a far better project. 

You should also avoid one-person operations in individual colleges or departments.  They tend to be islands and although will get the job done, do not get the real opportunity to collaborate on a regular basis with others.  Synergy is created when designers and support persons for varied backgrounds and skill levels get together and share.  Each brings their strengths and the outcome is bigger than the sum of the parts. 

Conclusion

In a recent conversation I had with a faculty member, she stated that she needed to be able to call upon technology experts to help her with her technology and teaching needs, just like she is called upon to consult in the area of her expertise. Faculty want to be as self sufficient as possible, they just need the experts to point them in the right direction, give them advise about the best way to proceed, and the best tool and method to make things happen.  You can be that person.

 Grading forms are authentic assessment tools that are a type of matrix that provides scaled levels of achievement or understanding for a set of criteria or dimensions of quality for a given type of performance.  Each of these criteria will have a range of performance indicators that one can place a student’s work along a continuum that ranges from exceptional to not up to expectations.

 

There are many advantages to using a grading form when evaluating a student’s work.  A well designed grading form will increase an assessment’s construct and content validity by aligning evaluation criteria to standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment tasks. They will also increase an assessment's reliability by setting criteria that raters can apply consistently and objectively.  Grading forms help move the instructor away from subjective grading by assessing work based on consistent, objective criteria.  They also tend to reduce bias and reduce the time needed in evaluating performance and providing valid feedback. Grading forms also informs the student what the explicit expectation is for superior performance and allows them to assess their own effort and performance.  This allows them to make adjustments to their work before submitting it to the instructor. They can give the learner specific feedback about their areas of strength and weakness and give them insight on how they can improve their performance. Use of a grading form can also answer the Student’s question of “Why did I only get a B?”.  

 

When grading forms are used for self- and peer-assessment, they help learners develop their ability to judge quality in their own and others' work. When the student is involved in designing the grading form, they are empowered to become self-directed learners.

 

In conclusion, by their very nature, grading forms encourage reflective practice on the part of both students and teachers. In particular, the act of developing a rubric instigates a powerful consideration of one's values and expectations for student learning, and the extent to which these expectations are reflected in actual classroom practices. If grading forms are used in the context of students' peer review of their own work or that of others, or if students are involved in the process of developing the grading form, these processes can spur the development of their ability to become self-directed and help them develop insight into how they and others learn.

 

Click on the attached file for an example of a grading form used to evaluate online discussions.

Faculty are on the front lines; we are frequently the first go-to person for students who are experiencing technical difficulties while working in their online courses. Perhaps one of the most important tools in many Blackboard courses is the Assessments tool (for Quizzes, Tests, and/or Assessments). Providing students with a short sample quiz helps them become familiar with the tool and gives them a head start in troubleshooting any technical problems that may arise during online testing.

Crosslisting involves creating an entirely new section called the Parent Section that contains the combined enrollments for two or more separate Vista sections. These seperate sections are called the Child Sections. 

 

SunGard's Banner can be used to set up Banner Crosslisted sections and import them into Vista.  The attached document will give you a better idea on how crosslisting works and how to set it up in Banner 7.

Like many colleges and universities, every semester we conduct a survey of both our instructors and our students regarding their experience with Blackboard.  The purpose of the survey is to get a pulse on what is happening with the system and to help determine where we need to improve and enhance the system to better meet the needs of our stakeholders with the goal of improving student success.

The big idea with end user surveys is to help ensure (by measurement) that Blackboard is meeting the needs of our faculty and students, and to discover any potential problems that may be occurring. 

As with any survey, some of the most important data is only extracted through open ended comments, rather than simplified answers to multiple choice or questions based on a Likert scale.  Not that it isn't important to ask questions that are objective based, but perhaps even more important are those circumstances where you would like to ask for perspectives or to gather ideas that are not easily obtained without using an open ended question format.

The trouble is... how do you quickly evaluate these responses?  Well there isn't really a way to truly review open ended responses to surveys without reading them, word-for-word.  This is important, but what if you just want a quick pulse or read on some general keywords?  Enter the tag cloud.  As tag clouds have gained in popularity from blogs to wikis to social bookmarking applications like Blackboard Scholar, so too have the tools that enable them to be created. 

While there are many tag cloud generators on the web, one of the easiest I've found to use is called Wordle.net.  It's as easy as copying text and pasting it in... and clicking the Go button.  Without getting to wordy on this Best Practice post... and before turning this post into a tag cloud itself :) , one of the ways I have found to quickly scan open ended comments in a survey is to create a tag cloud of the responses with Wordle.  For example, when we asked our students about why they believe that using Blackboard is beneficial to them, we received more than 350 responses... and while again, reading them is important, by placing their responses into Wordle, the following graphic revealed some important themes, such as grades, class, better, access, time,online,available,assignments, information. [See Image Below]

Equipped with these themes and the rest of the survey data, I've been able to promote features and functionality that make a difference to students in their learning.  This in turn, has also proved helpful in marketing the benefits of using Blackboard to those faculty that haven't yet adopted using it in their teaching.

What are your thoughts, how have you taken survey information and used it to help increase awareness and adoption at your institution?

After several years of beta testing Blackboard software, I've come up with a list of the things we at Seneca College try to accomplish as part of our internal beta testing process.  If you are chosen to be a Beta Program partner you may find this useful.  From what I understand, Blackboard receives more requests to be part of the Beta Program than they can handle (literally).  While more is better, it's often more effective to have a smaller group that is more focused and active in testing than larger groups.  That being said, it's important to be active so here's what we do.


Try to Attend All of the Beta Conference Calls.

While conference call attendees get asked what testing they have done since the last call, they are also given important information about issues and time lines.  Blackboard will also bring in various resources to demonstrate new features and discuss issues as appropriate.  Time lines, while prearranged, may change depending on the feedback and issues reported so it's important to keep current.

Seems Simple but... Test Out the "New" Software.

The beta software will contain new or rewritten software tools that beta testers will most likely be unfamiliar with.  In this early stage, there is usually no documentation so testing is largely through self-discovery.  Sometimes the beta conference calls will discuss the new functionality but it's usually demonstrated and is just not the same as hands-on usage of the new functionality.  Beta testers should "play" with the software by reviewing all of the portions of the new or enhanced tool thoroughly and it should be tried out with various pedagogical scenarios.  I personally try to figure out the software without learning anything about it beforehand.  Consider that this may be how your faculty are introduced to these new changes so "walk in their shoes" and try it like you think it should work.

Review your Support Tickets and Enhancement Requests.

As has been the case recently, portions of the Blackboard product are being rewritten.  This opens the door for enhanced functionality that you may have requested through enhancement requests or issues documented in  lower priority support tickets.  As a beta tester, see if any of your requests have been implemented.  You will occasionally be pleasantly surprised.

Support tickets also get reviewed when new releases come out so check your support tickets to see if anything has been changed to resolve them.  If so, test thoroughly and do a final test when in production and don't forget to update your tickets.

Include Key Faculty in Beta Testing.

I'm sure that everyone has particular faculty that either "champion" a particular tool or have enhancement requests or concerns that they have voiced.  If a particular tool is enhanced or is included as new functionality, include those faculty in the beta process and have them test it out as they will use it in class.  The beta process is not just for system administrators even though the majority of the effort may come from them. Faculty can be included in the beta process as well because the non-disclosure document you sign covers the entire institution.

If Upgrading to this New Version, Test the Upgrade Process.

I think the biggest issue we had with Blackboard 6.0 was the fact that we beta tested the software on a test server but we did not try a complete upgrade from 5.6 in our beta process.  We learned the hard way that we needed to. If I can stress one point, it would be to test out the upgrade and do your beta testing on the upgraded test server.  I realize that sometimes test servers are not the same hardware configuration as your production servers but upgraded software and data is what you will be working with in production when you do your production installation so this needs to be tested. You should also try to beta test the software with the same or near same server configuration.  We ran into technical issues several times when beta testing with upgraded data because faculty use tools differently than what the software was originally written to do and these use cases were not tested.

Trust me; the beta process is when you want to catch these issues; not in production.

Collaborate with Fellow Beta Testers.

Part of the beta process usually includes a course site on a Blackboard server specifically for beta testers that houses several tools including a discussion board for discussion of issues and general feedback.  Check this often and participate in providing feedback.  This is vital to the beta process and generally no feedback means that everything is perfect (just like tech support, right?). So, post plenty of feedback.

Report your Issues.

I've talked to several Blackboard support people over the years and the most frustrating thing is that common issues usually never get reported.  This is a beta test so now is not the time to think that someone else "must have run into this issue so they must have reported it".  I think Blackboard would rather go through several reports of the same issue than not having it reported at all.  Don't hesitate to report them!

Don't forget to test the stuff you didn't think changed.

Beta testing should include general testing of all aspects of the software. Normally, particular focus in testing is given to new or enhanced functionality because, let's face it, we want to see what's new!  Equally important is general testing to make sure nothing else broke. There are smaller less visible fixes and enhancements that are made and the new enhancements may also indirectly effect other portions of the system (like Grade Center or email) so include everything in your general testing plan.  In Blackboard 9.0, the user interface was greatly enhanced but even if core functionality didn't change, we still went thoroughly through the software.  We also keep our "test plan" for participation in later betas and update it with the new features each time.

Commit to a regular weekly Beta Testing period.

I'm not sure anyone can afford to focus on beta testing and do nothing else.  In our case, we schedule and dedicate one half to one full day of beta testing per week.  In recent beta tests we were able to focus on testing with everyone in one room, testing out various scenarios as we went through each major sub system or tool.  If you are able to do this, I think you will find that more testing done than trying to take a small portion of each day to test, for example.

New Build?  Time to start all over.

Depending on the beta process, you may get access to multiple iterations of the software known as "builds" to test.  I have seen major back-end changes occur between builds and functionality that changes from build to build.  While I know it gets a bit tedious, go through your test plan for every build.  It may save you some headaches later on.

 
Final Testing is Completed with the Production Release.

Nobody like surprises when you install software in production and things do change between various builds and the final "Production Release".  Remember that this version is just another build so it goes without saying that you should do complete testing with the production version of the software in your beta testing environment before you install this version in production.

A popular uses of a Blackboard for hybrid courses, is the dissemination of course materials to students.  Students may also use Blackboard to turn in or deliver assignments to faculty or fellow class members.  Many questions to Ask Dr. C from students revolve around the inability to download or view some course materials the instructor has posted.  Usually the problem is simply that the student does not have the correct software or latest software to view the file. Here are a few tips and best practices to make your posting of course materials a success.

In this article, find out:
How files in Blackboard work
How to create Web Friendly Documents – PDF files
How to creating PDF files from PowerPoint.

Want more tips from the Dr. C's? Visit our Ask Dr. C Connections page.