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Introduction
A learning management system may be used for a
variety of purposes on a university campus.
Primarily, the Blackboard® (Bb) Learning Management
System (LMS) has been used significantly to support
the teaching and learning process in higher
education (Amey & VanDerLinden, 2003). As
Blackboard® developers implement additional
resources and tools into the current structure of
the learning management system, the software
changes. As the design and usage transform, so do
the extensive uses of the system (Morgan, 2006).
This change has already begun among the faculty,
staff, and administrators at California State
University, Fullerton.
The purpose of this article is to convey the variety
of ways that Blackboard® is utilized
among the colleges, departments, administrators,
faculty, staff and students at the university. After
completing comprehensive analyses of the data
available in the Blackboard® Content
System, other layers of the LMS will be discussed.
First introduced to the campus as an alternative to
WebCT in 2000, the Blackboard® LMS was
not well received. The lack of enthusiasm among
faculty was due primarily to the previous
familiarity of the existing
LMS
and the instability of the new
LMS when it was initially available. Change is
difficult to manage, and those loyal users of Web CT
did not adapt to the new LMS format. However, when
WebCT was no longer available, the transfer to
Blackboard® was inevitable. As new
modifications became available in Blackboard®,
such as the Content System, building blocks, and
scheduled upgrades, the campus administrators
adapted the changes and made the resources an
available priority for those who teach on the
campus.
The most apparent modification that occurred to the
Blackboard® system was that it was added
to the locally developed University Portal. This
integration and availability of Blackboard®
from the University Portal addressed the need to
maintain the web based program within the context of
the existing software that was implemented
campus-wide. A single sign-on through the portal
provided students, staff, and faculty streamlined
access to the Bb LMS. In addition to the change in
the user interface, the
LMS
is used to support teaching and learning. The
Community System, Content System, Electronic
Reserves, Electronic Portfolios, Building Block
Usage, and the Training and Professional Development
implementation all comprise the multi-layered
approach to the comprehensive use of the Blackboard®
LMS. The remainder of this paper details the
specific uses of the aforementioned Blackboard®
areas among the campus faculty, staff, and
administrators.
Community System
The addition of the Community System within
Blackboard® provided a web based site
where participants could utilize any of the
LMS features to collaborate and communicate with
members. Unlike the courses created in Bb, the
communities do not expire and enrollment is open to
faculty, students, and staff. The Community System
was first available in spring 2006. By the summer
2008 semester, 199 communities had been created for
faculty, staff, and student organizations on
campus. In an effort to introduce the use of the
Community System to faculty, the Faculty Development
Center offered a Technology Institute during the
summer 2006 semester that featured the use,
implementation, and creation of the Community System
to faculty. This institute offered faculty who
participated hands-on training and a monetary
stipend. The faculty learned how to use and
implement the Community System in an individual
manner that supported their research interests,
teaching, or departmental needs. The training
program offered was well received, as demonstrated
by the workshop attendance and subsequent feedback.
The training sessions were filled to capacity with
interested participants. As a result of offering the
stipend and the training, additional faculty and
administrators were able to view the potential for
using the Blackboard® Community System as
a method to create an online community.
The training and the implementation of the Community
System supports the teaching and learning process.
Numerous organizations on campus have taken
advantage of this collaboration tool including the
departments of Student Affairs, New Student
Orientation, Help Desk, Library & Information
Commons, various steering committees on campus
including Western Association of Schools and
Colleges, Dean of Students, Division of Financial
Aid, Computer Lab, and Information Technology
Committees. Students readily make use of the
Community System as well. Biology Graduate Students,
Student
Tutoring
Center,
Student Doctorate of Education Organization, and the
Freshman Program Online Community are among the many
student organizations that have created a community.
The Student Affairs Division on campus uses the
Community System as an information repository for
incoming students and as a method of contacting and
supporting new student services. It is used as a
collaboration tool to maintain contact with and
provide information to new students on campus.
Numerous departments on campus are using the
Community System to collaborate among administrators
and faculty. One prime example is the use of a
Community System to manage the paper work associated
with the accreditation process. By using a Community
System, the documents are readily available and
located in a secure and accessible location. Another
department uses the Community System to survey their
incoming students about their technology
competencies and ability levels. One other method
for incorporating the Community System is as a
course collaboration tool among faculty. This is an
information repository where syllabi, handouts,
documents, articles, and grading policies are all
centrally located and available to faculty. Students
readily use the Community System to communicate with
other students, search for possible employment and
internship opportunities, and receive current
information about their majors.
Further use of the Community System includes
communities created to share emerging technologies
among faculty and staff. As noted by Gustafson
(2004), students expect to learn in an environment
that supports modern and sophisticated
technologies. In order for faculty to meet the
expectations of their students, they too need to be
educated about emerging technologies that are
beneficial to the education process. One newly
created community was created based on podcasting.
The community was created to share web resources,
articles, and host discussion forums about
podcasting challenges and success stories in the
classroom. The individuals who received training in
podcasting are dynamically enrolled into the podcast
community where additional resources and directions
were available to aid in the creation process.
Another technology that was introduced and
distributed using the Community System was the
Respondus Users’ Community. This community provided
interested users the opportunity to enroll in the
community using the self-enroll option. Once part of
the community, faculty members were able to download
the Respondus software and view tutorials and
supplemental materials related to the use and
implementation of the software.
Campus-wide event planning and committees, such as
WASC Committee and the Campus Web Designers group,
actively engage in the use of a community system.
The feature enables the committee members to plan,
share, and distribute information and resources. The
tools alleviate the need to schedule information
only meetings, and the committees are able to read,
plan, and discuss prior to attending a face-to-face
meeting using the online collaboration tools
available.
Another use of the Blackboard® Community
System is that offered by the Department of Modern
Languages. This department uses the system to
display content in various language formats
including Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French,
Italian, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portugese,
Vietnamese and German. Most of these languages are
supported by Bb and create a dynamic environment
where students and faculty may practice learning a
foreign language by sharing audio and video files.
Content System
Another feature available at the university is the
Content System, which includes a virtual hard drive
that enables faculty to upload and store files. The
virtual drive is available to all members of the
campus community. Presently, each student has a
storage capacity of 50 megabytes, and staff and
faculty may store up to 75 megabytes. Provisions are
in place to expand the storage quota up to one
gigabyte upon request.
Various department personnel use the content system
to share and manage institutional content among
staff members. For example, the
College
of
Engineering
and Computer Science is using it to distribute
sensitive documents among senior staff members. The
university library is also utilizing the Content
System to upload and share content in a secure
environment.
Many university administrators use the virtual hard
drive as a secure platform to store and develop
departmental documentation. The files may be of a
sensitive nature, and with the added layers of
security featured in the virtual hard drive the
system provides a secure drive for administrators to
use. Faculty, staff, and students find that the use
of the virtual hard drive is advantageous. This is
clear by looking at a steadily rising number of
users storing content on their virtual drives and an
increasing number of requests for more space.
The area is a free space to place personal and
educational related content. By placing files within
the virtual hard drive, faculty can create links to
multiple courses. This makes modifying files simple
and results in a streamlined process with no
redundancy of content. Furthermore, faculty may make
the content available to off-campus individuals or
groups by sending them content “passes.” Staff
members take advantage of the virtual hard drive as
a place where they may share documents within work
groups and for storage space. Students use the space
to store their projects, assignments, documents. The
storage space eliminates the need to carry and
transfer files using flash drives or CDs. Students
who are taught about the virtual hard drive in their
courses have expressed appreciation to their
instructors for informing them of this resource.
Students use the virtual drive to collect and store
research papers along with documents that they will
place into their collective portfolios.
Electronic Reserves
The electronic reserves or e-reserves was
implemented at the university though the library,
which has replaced its previous e-reserves system
with the Blackboard® E-Reserves. This
enables faculty to seamlessly integrate their
reserves into their Bb courses. Every semester,
library staff place content on E-Reserves for over
200 courses, which is made available using the
Blackboard system. Having the E-Reserves content
available on Bb eliminates the need for the library
to maintain additional resources to store this
content elsewhere and provides seamless access to
students through Blackboard®. A variety
of formats are available through the e-reserves,
including videos, audio recordings, journal
articles, e-books, and links to the library
databases.
Electronic Portfolios
An additional element that is widely used in
Blackboard® is the electronic portfolio
feature. The e-portfolio tool enables users to
create a self contained electronic version of their
files that may be exported for future use. They may
share their portfolios with users on campus or make
it available to future employers or coworkers, etc.,
off campus. With the new version of Blackboard®,
a community may create personal e-portfolios or
basic e-portfolios, each of which has unique
characteristics.
The e-portfolio tool is used by the campus
community, including students, staff, and faculty.
Although the primary purpose was intended for use
among students, this tool is quite versatile and
enables various constituencies to incorporate the
instrument for numerous purposes. Students use the
tool to fulfill course requirements and create a
self contained web page that displays evidence of
their learning throughout the semester. Students can
create multiple e-portfolios. They may create
e-portfolios for future and current employers,
courses, and graduation requirements to demonstrate
their abilities and to display their competencies.
Faculty members format their e-portfolios to
demonstrate progress for the retention, tenure, and
promotion process. Additionally, faculty members may
compile their course syllabi, current curriculum
vitae, and a professional or personal homepage using
the e-portfolio tool. Staff members realize that
they are able to continuously update their resumes
using the e-portfolio tools. Work related projects
can be created in a web based format that staff can
quickly email and share with others. Furthermore,
staff may display their professional development
milestones in the form of e-portfolios.
Building Blocks
As technologies continue to advance and change the
way that we complete tasks (Roblyer, 2006)
Blackboard® developers continue to modify
the available offerings to meet changing needs of
universities. This includes the addition of building
blocks that are used to enhance the purposes of
Blackboard®. Two primary areas that have
been utilized at the university are the community
and assessment building blocks used to increase
functionality. The beta testing of building blocks
such as Elluminate® or I-Linc®
enable faculty to test the software and collaborate
with their students online using audio and video.
Should faculty elect to support these products after
the conclusion of the trial period, the university
will seek out the necessary provisions to acquire
the software. Another building block in the testing
stages is a Podcasting Building Block, which adds
the ability for instructors to add podcasts
seamlessly within their Blackboard®
course.
Professional Development
Blackboard® LMS training for faculty
takes place at the Faculty Development Center (FDC),
which provides training and support for faculty and
staff using Bb. In addition to basic introductory
training about the functionality of Blackboard®,
the consultants at the
FDC offer advanced trainings about pedagogy and
three certificate programs that are delivered,
managed, and supported through the Bb
LMS.
Launched first during the fall semester 2006, more
than 78 faculty members have registered to
participate in the certificate program. The newest
of these certificate programs is the Blackboard
Certificate Program. The purpose of the program is
for individuals to learn about pedagogy associated
with teaching in a web based environment. The
Blackboard Certificate Program consists of ten
sessions, the creation of a training course, and a
formal presentation and the conclusion of the
program.
The Teaching and Learning Academy Certificate
program (TLAC) allows participants to complete
workshops and lectures related to the teaching and
learning process. The program has been operational
for over 8 years, and recently the inclusion of a
Blackboard® community has promoted
communication among those individuals participating
in TLAC. As noted by Nichols (2004), establishing an
online community where faculty may collaborate
virtually is an essential component in building
positive e-learning practices among individuals. The
TLAC program coordinator uses a Blackboard community
to communicate with instructors. The TLAC
participants receive updates and supplemental
resources that support content reviewed throughout
the workshops.
The Online Teaching Certificate program is
facilitated through a Blackboard® course
and the Community System. All of the content related
to the Online Teaching Certificate is distributed
and demonstrated using Blackboard®. This
program is unique because it provides participants
with the opportunity to participate in an online
course and learn about instructional strategies
related to the virtual environment. As detailed by
Grasha and Yangarber-Hicks (2000), providing faculty
with concrete learning experiences can be a valuable
experience for their future teaching practices.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is obvious that Blackboard®
has come out of the box for the university
community. It is being utilized not only to enhance
teaching and learning within and outside the realm
of a classroom, but also for the secure distribution
and sharing of content and other information,
communication, and establishing web based
communities. Furthermore, it is used to promote and
introduce other technologies on campus, such as
podcasting, audio and video conferencing, new
software, assessment tools.
As described in this paper, the Blackboard®
LMS
has many uses that support teaching and learning. It
would be beneficial to utilize this resource for
multiple purposes since Blackboard® is
readily available, simple to use with training, and
can be used to support faculty, staff and students
on campus.
References
Amey, M., & VanDerLinden, K. (2003). The use of
technology: Institutional issues. The NEA Almanac
of Higher Education, 85-95.
Grasha, A. F., & Yangarber-Hicks, N. (2000).
Integrating teaching styles and learning styles with
instructional technology. College Teaching, 48,
2-10.
Gustafson, K. (2004). The impact of technologies on
learning. Planning Higher Education, 32(2),
37-43.
Morgan, G. (2006).
CSU
Academic Technology Research Bulletin 1: An
Introduction to Learning Management Systems.
Retrieved
May 10, 2008, from https://www.calstate.edu/ATS/elearning_framework/lms_reports.shtml
Nichols, M. (2004). Motivation and hygiene as a
framework for elearning practice. Educational
Technology & Society, 7(3), 1-4.
Roblyer, M. D. (2003). Integrating educational
technology into teaching (3rd ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
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