How to Build a BbWorld (Blackboard Clients Review and Choose the Conference Sessions!)
Those of you who have bookmarked the BbWorld '08 website may have noticed that we've announced the client-led program! I'm really excited to see so many clients speaking on such great topics.
There are three general conference "themes" this year: Assess, Engage, and Manage. Schedules, Blackboard-led sessions and partner-led sessions will be available soon.
One of the questions I often am asked is "How do you select sessions for BbWorld?" Well, the answer is that I don't, really. Our clients do.
This year we had 55 clients volunteer to be a part of our client program committee. These 55 clients, plus about 10 Blackboard folks, reviewed the 325 sessions submitted for BbWorld '08 and the Blackboard Developers Conference. All told, there were over 3500 individual session reviews – each session was looked at by an average of 10 people. Let me explain the process.
The Process
What do the program committee members look for in a session?
Well, they look for what they would want to see at BbWorld!
Our committee is made up of a cross-section of clients – from system administrators to instructional designers, from community colleges to K-12 organizations, located in the U.S. and around the world. Each reviewer brings to the proces their own interests in e-Learning and experience-level.
To narrow the scope of their review, committee members focus on topics close to their hearts. A system administrator might review the sessions on scalability and growth. An instructional designer would review sessions about pedagogy or student engagement.
Once they start reviewing, committee members answer a series of questions about the session. First, they rank how valuable they perceive the session will be to BbWorld in general. They then help me categorize the session into the conferences' overall themes: Assess, Engage, and Manage. (This step is not always easy, by the way! Many sessions fit into multiple themes.) Then committee members provide comments on the session.
And this is where I come in. I take all the session reviews and give each session an average score based on client feedback. I also take other factors into consideration to ensure a good balance of topics (technical vs. classroom), products (Blackboard Learning System – Vista, CE and Enterprise Licenses) and clients (community colleges, K-12 organizations, big schools, little schools, etc.). And of course, we only have so many breakout sessions and breakout rooms!
The process is a little bit of science and a little bit of art. It’s not a perfect system – I’m sure that a great session "gets away" from us sometimes. But our hope is that we end up with a balanced, varied and innovative program that provides attendees with the content they need.
So, that's the 411 on how we choose BbWorld client-led sessions. I hope this gives you a window into how we (and our clients) build BbWorld.
If you have ideas on how we might make the program better, or if you're interested in joining the program committee next year, send me an email at BbWorld@blackboard.com. We’d love you to participate!
