The most satisfying part of my job is seeing progress in attacking “big problems” in education. It’s when we take on these bigger challenges that we arrive at breakthrough thinking and innovation that matters. Today we’ve shipped a new feature for our Learn platform that I think fits that bill—a new feature called “Retention Center.”

The big problem: inability to track student performance and take action before it’s too late. There’s been much ink spilled in the industry about big data and analytics, and we’ve developed an entire product line focused on mining data to create institution-wide perspective. But academic research has shown that one doesn’t need “big data” solutions to yield meaningful insight at the grass roots, course level. There’s insight in patterns of student behavior, and in relative performance through course progression that can be very valuable to both instructors and the institution.

There’s a clear tie between the institutional level goal of student retention and the astute instructor’s early awareness of behaviors or results that suggest underperformance. Our new Retention Center is offered to help gather every piece of information about this area we can, using the power of technology to create insight, perspective and opportunities for instructors to take immediate action. Our hope is that it can help bring insight to instructors so they can intervene earlier than they might otherwise be able to, and to help them prioritize their increasingly limited time.

What does it do?

The Retention Center gives critical insight on learning and activity gaps to instructors, within the LMS, that helps them quickly diagnose students that are falling behind. Pre-configured and automatic so they don’t have to hunt for it. No set-up: it automatically calls out students that are at risk while instructors still have time and space to do something about it. With the feature instructors can see:

• Who’s logging in: this is a simple but powerful predictor of student success. Instructors see how long it’s been since students have logged in to the course and how many have been away for five days or more. And not by fishing through student profiles or reports but in an automatic view complete with red flags where they’re needed.
• Whether they’re engaged: which students have had low levels of course activity, at 20 percent or below the average in the last week.
• Whose grades are suffering: which students are currently trending at 25 percent or more below the course average so they can target extra help to where it’s most needed – even when it isn’t asked for.
• Who has missed deadlines: instructors might know this anecdotally or on a case-by-case basis, but now they can get a real-time view of all students that have missed one or more deadline.

Student retention is a big problem, and it’s being addressed at lots of levels with a variety of approaches. But few of them give instructors as much actionable data that can be used immediately. Few of them offer instructors so much specific insight on areas to engage without requiring heaps of time that they don’t have. That’s why we built this feature: to give instructors a leg up in tackling a tough education challenge right in their course.

If you’re interested, take a quick peek at our new feature in this video.

Cheers,

Ray

What may have been the worst kept secret at Blackboard is finally out. Today, we launched Blackboard Learn™ 9.1 Service Pack 10, which continues the evolution of our learning environment. Between our teaser video, Sneak Peak Webinars and my now famous “between SP9 and SP11” line at BbWorld12, we have communicated key themes and a vision for how the LMS is evolving.

Many of you have seen my Report Card at BbWorld and know that I’ve made a push to focus on the fundamentals since my first day as a member of Blackboard’s leadership team. This year at BbWorld, I introduced Innovation as the fifth fundamental to go along with client support, transparency, openness and quality. And what we are doing at Blackboard in terms of user experience is nothing short of innovative. We’ve designed new features that have made Blackboard more user-friendly, more focused on your needs and more modern -like the online experiences you’re used to outside of education.

The user interface and experience ultimately fosters more student engagement and helps educators become more efficient.  Consider what Mark Radcliffe of blendedschools.net wrote in his guest blog post:

“My Blackboard is my favorite SP10 feature. The first time I logged into SP10 as a teacher and saw that little red “1” in the top right hand corner of the screen, my interest was piqued. I found that without even making a click, Bb had told me that one of my students had submitted something. Within two clicks, I was grading that assessment. This same speed improvement affects students and is all achieved through a very contemporary look.”

Those of you who have followed me on this blog and on Twitter know my passion for design and improving the user experience. It’s for this reason that I elevated Stephanie Weeks to the position of Vice President for User Experience this summer, reporting directly to me. A self-described design-perfectionist who finds inspiration where others don’t, Stephanie was critical to building this release.

I’ve asked her to give you a behind the scenes look at how and why we designed SP10 the way we did, and what the early feedback has been.

From Stephanie Weeks, Vice President of User Experience:

 

My obsession with the user experience in Blackboard Learn is nearly a decade old. In my time at Blackboard I’ve witnessed the transformation made by turning the concept of “user research” from an interesting idea to a fundamental element of the product strategy. I’m frequently asked how it is that we understand what users want or need in the software experience, and my answer is simple: we watch them. What you’ll see in Service Pack 10 is a reaction to years of understanding how millions of educators and learners get through their day. We spend time with our users – not just asking them what they want, but observing how they do things, what tools they use, what processes they create, what habits they form – so that we can envision a simple solution for them.

When designing solutions, one would be a fool not to consider the most popular experiences being used today – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the like. Jakob Nielsen insists upon it.

Originally posted on www.rayhblog.com Corporate Update: After months of media coverage about a potential go-private transaction for Blackboard, last week we closed the deal. Blackboard is once again a private company, owned primarily by Providence Equity Partners. Net effect? Our ownership is made up of a much smaller group of people who share a much more closely aligned idea of where we want to go as a company. A First Strategic Impact – Blackboard deepens its K-12 bench: I’ve noted in an earlier post that one of the things that attracted us to Providence was their experience investing in education companies. One area of particular interest to us was Edline, a highly regarded purveyor of K-12 education platforms in use at over 20,000 schools in North America. Our team had actively sought a partnership with Edline to assist us in our own growth in K-12. We’re big fans of Edline’s learning community management platform, and its excellent school portal and parental communication tools. And Providence has been seeking to extend Edline to support more advanced learning management, online collaboration, and mobility support. This is the basis for our first major event as a private company. With assistance from Providence, Edline is now a part of Blackboard and significantly strengthens our K-12 forces and offerings. More importantly, we’ll improve the value of the Edline offering to our K-12 clients sooner and with greater quality than could have otherwise occurred.