by Kelly Hamilton
Pilot rounds of Suggestion Squads for Course Delivery, Community Management, and Xythos just concluded voting a few weeks ago. Now, we are in the middle of recruiting for Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 Service Pack 8 Product Development Partnerships (PDPs). We also just announced two new programs for ANGEL clients, a Content Conversion PDP and a new Office Hours Cohort program; we are making plans to kickoff another
Bug Squad, we have a SCORM Beta program in progress, as well as the
Accessibility Grant program. And, we have installation and integration testing opportunities coming soon along with the ongoing user experience testing and product surveys that we conduct.
by Carrie Singer
I am Carrie Singer from Blackboard’s Product Marketing group. I’ve had the pleasure of working for Blackboard for eight years now but my favorite role to date is the one I have now managing the Upgrade Cohort program. I’ve heard from clients that making the transition to Release 9.1 sometimes feels like a daunting task and a complex undertaking. It requires careful planning, preparation, training and timing, the right equipment, the right resources and most of the all, the right kind of support. That’s why we encourage clients who are in the midst of planning their upgrade to join our
Release 9.1 Upgrade Cohort program.
by admin
As a Blackboard strategic consultant, I work with 2- and
4-year institutions around the globe in designing manageable and sustainable
assessment processes that produce actionable knowledge – knowledge that leads
to action – action that increases the quality of educational and administrative
programs and services. While I love my work, I often find myself wishing for a
magic wand. My magic wand would wave and the potential of outcomes assessment
would become evident to everyone around. Institutions would see that
“accountability” is not about metrics but about having a means of evaluating
the impact of their work and taking action to increase the quality of that
impact. Assessment would be seen not as a burden, but as a powerful gift. This power
would be understood as making the work of higher education visible – to
students, faculty, programs, institutions, and oh, yes, to those pesky
entities demanding accountability. What do I mean by visibility?
by admin
Best wishes for 2010! Those of us who are involved in assessment are frequently asked “Why would anyone want an assessment job?” All of the assessment people that I know love their work and are passionate about the benefits that assessment offers. As we start a new year, perhaps we should stop now for a few moments to reflect on why we “assessment people” believe so strongly in our work.
As a director or coordinator of assessment, you are always balancing the demands from your stakeholders. The administration wants the institution to meet improvement goals while meeting the standards of the accrediting agencies. The faculty members, already overburdened, often view assessment as another chore to accomplish and want assessment to be as easy as possible. Meanwhile, the “shifting sands” of the accrediting space are always demanding changes in established (and comfortable) assessment practices. In addition to being an administrator and assessment evangelist, you must also find the time to remain current in your practice.
by admin
Guest post from Esther Jubb, Manager, Institutional Assessment for Blackboard Global Services.
Hi, I’m Esther. Greetings from the UK, where I work with Blackboard’s international clients as a strategic consultant and subject matter expert in the area of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness. As part of an ongoing series of posts on assessment, this post is going to offer the community a comparison of the assessment environment in the UK and the US and offer context to some of the challenges that we’re currently facing.
