Gathering course evaluation feedback is an increasingly important aspect of institutions’ strategic decisions. Academic leaders value research and data analysis to identify areas for institutional training enhancement. There are an abundant number of solutions in the area of feedback management, but how can institutions harness the right data?

This past fall, Blackboard gave a major nod to the importance of data-driven enhancement when we began offering our enterprise survey tool as part of the core Blackboard Learn product.

Recently, eXplorance, a leading enterprise feedback management provider, has become a Blackboard Premier Partner. eXplorance has more than 150 clients utilizing the Blackboard Learn integration it developed in 2010. This Premier Partnership allows for a greater collaboration between the two companies through increased technical, marketing, and sales support.

Digital learning content is a hot topic – both across the education landscape and especially here at Blackboard. With the growing importance of online learning, course designers and instructors are constantly evolving the elements they incorporate into their digital curriculum. Every educator has their own style, their own methods, and their own set of students with unique needs. And with so many options out there, deciding what content to choose can be overwhelming. For more than six years SoftChalk, a leading provider of content authoring software for educators in K-12, higher ed and medical programs, has partnered with Blackboard to offer a tool for publishing user-generated lessons to Blackboard Learn. It’s been a fabulous run, and 2012 has been no exception. Recently SoftChalk and the Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS) were chosen as a bronze Learning Impact Award winner by the IMS Global Learning Consortium for the revolutionary Learn on Demand program offered through KCTCS Online. SoftChalk also announced the winners of its 2012 Lesson Challenge – with winning lessons submitted by instructors covering a wide range of subjects, including Spelling, Integers & Real Numbers, First Aid, Nonverbal Messages, and Public Health. But what’s most exciting about SoftChalk this year is their announcement yesterday that their product is officially available in the Cloud. That means SoftChalk users can create original, media-rich, engaging lessons that can be published anywhere, anytime – with or without an LMS. SoftChalk content is reusable, sharable and completely customizable. And what do customers claim is the best part about SoftChalk? It’s easy to learn and convenient to use! So if you’ve ever asked: How do I create personalized content that addresses the diverse learning needs of students? How can I reliably track detailed student score results for my learning content? How can I create content for mobile learners quickly and easily? SoftChalk could be your answer. Join the Blackboard Partnerships team for a free webinar on June 20 and see why.

Guest post by Gerry Praysman, Buzz Marketer, Brainshark, Inc. Brainshark, a Blackboard Signature Partner™, won two of ELearning! Media Group’s Annual Readers’ Choice Awards for product innovation and customer satisfaction. After the announcement, Gerry Praysman, Brainshark’s social outreach expert, sat down with their Learning & Development team to answer the question: What are we doing right? Here are the “Best Practices” Brainshark wanted to share with their peers in the eLearning community. We here at Brainshark are incredibly proud of our recent wins at the Best of ELearning! Awards. Although we’ve been having a blast with this, we figured this would be a good time to take a short break from our celebrating and share a few tidbits of wisdom we’ve picked up over the years. Here are five tips that are sure to improve your eLearning and training programs: