After 10 years of using Blackboard Inc. applications, Kingston University experienced tremendous growth, usage and adoption. In fact, over 95% of students and more than 80% of academic staff use Blackboard Learn™ as their virtual learning environment (VLE). As the years passed and adoption grew, the time came for Kingston to re-evaluate their learning technologies.

In consultation with faculty and students across all disciplines, the evaluation committee engaged in a year-long review which included a functional assessment of Blackboard Learn, ™ 9.1 and other open source alternatives. The evaluation was prompted by a variety of reasons but alignment to the University’s new Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy was especially important. To learn more about Kingston’s evaluation experience, we spoke with Dr. Tim Linsey, the Director of e-Learning at Kingston University, who identified the primary factors that contributed to their decision to select Learn, 9.1. (more…)

Building on the momentum following this year’s EDUCAUSE I thought it would be nice to give some love to our developer community, so I am proud to announce the availability of our new Blackboard plug-in for the Eclipse development platform. This will dramatically reduce the amount of time developers spend on setting up their development environment to build Blackboard Building Blocks.

If you’re a web application developer, chances are that you’ve heard of Eclipse. For the uninitiated, Eclipse is an open source software development environment that can be used to develop Blackboard Building Blocks. (more…)

If you’re reading this blog post, there’s about 99.99% certainty that you’re also someone who’s using (or about to start using) a learning management system (LMS). With the wide and varied range of tools and capabilities that an LMS can provide, it’s no wonder they they’ve become an instructor’s standard platform for course creation, course management, and course information.  Your students are likely using this LMS, as well, logging in to check on schedules, assignments, and grades.  Whether the education you’re providing is virtual, traditional, or blended, an LMS is likely its lifeblood. (more…)

What does openness and efficiency look like bundled into one?

Blackboard continues to find ways to innovate and make users more efficient in their daily tasks. There are various ways we can accomplish this. It may be through the core Blackboard Learn™ platform. Or, it may be through Blackboard Building Blocks™ where we augment the platform and provide clients with a greater choice of instructional tools. And, as we develop, we continue to consider how we can contribute back to not only the education community, but the developer community, as well. We’re excited to announce two important Building Blocks – Bboogle and the Paste from Word Mashup – are now available and certified for the Blackboard Learn platform. (more…)