October 9, 2009
UMBC "Check My Activity" Reports for Students Now Available Inside Blackboard
Based on user response to a system-wide announcement in all UMBC Blackboard courses this past week, the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has made a permanent link to the self-service "Check My Activity" (CMA) reporting tools for students on the myBlackboard tools menu.
Specifically, all students now have an easy way to find the "Check My Activity" (CMA) and "Grade Distribution Report" (GDR) tools for comparing their own activity against an anonymous summary of their course peers. Using this same myBlackboard tools menu link, faculty and staff have access to similar reports, though staff are unlikely to have need for the GDR tool, which is only valuable if a grade has been entered in a Bb grade book.
As reported previously by DoIT and The Retriever Weekly, students have had access to their own CMA and GDR tools since Spring of 2009. However, adoption has been slow, probably because the tools don't reside inside Blackboard. So, a link to both reports was posted on Friday, October 2, at 5 p.m. and expired a week later at the same time on Friday, October 9.
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| CMA & GDR Demo |
- In just one week, CMA & GDR usage activity increased more than 1,000 percent to 6,051 visits compared to 391 visits the entire previous month (Sept. 1 to Oct. 1).
- The total number of page views increased to 20,008 from 537 the previous month. Average page views per visit also increased to 3.31 compared to 1.37.
- The average time spent on the CMA & GDR reports jumped to 1 minute, 18 seconds, compared to just 13 seconds the previous month.
- Also, returning visitors accounted for 83 percent of all page views, and they spent more time on the site (1 min, 26 secs) compared to new visitors (58 secs). This means the the CMA & GDR tools constitute a "sticky site," in that once visitors discover it, they come back again and again.
- Is is worth noting that the Grade Distribution Report (GDR) was by far the most popular tool, accounting for 73 percent of all visits to the UMBC Blackboard Reports site that contains all "self service" tools and list of Most Active Courses for each semester over the last two years.
While user activity steadily declined as the week progressed, it may be because there were fewer new grades to compare user activity against. This strong interest in grades and related Blackboard activity confirms key findings of a national study showing students value the ability to check grades and gain access to practice quizzes and sample exercises as the most valuable functions in a course management system (CMS) like Blackboard.
A full report showing the CMA & GDR usage activity from September 1 to October 9 is available here.
Posted by fritz at 10:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 24, 2009
Challenges and Changes to UMBC Blackboard Support
This summer, the Division of Information Technology (DoIT), has begun to face more than our typical “back to school” challenges in providing Blackboard support to UMBC students, faculty and staff. Specifically, we have lost an employee who provided fulltime support for nine years; the campus has implemented a new student information system that provides the data for our auto course creation and enrollment scripts; and we are preparing for a possible disruption of classes due to the H1N1 flu this coming year.
In addressing these challenges, DoIT asks for your understanding as we make some necessary changes to sustain (and hopefully improve) how we provide Blackboard support to the campus.
For example:
1. We will continue to rely on the full time DoIT Help Desk staff to provide tier 1, basic Blackboard support, including all queries about Bb course creation and enrollment issues.
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In addition, Jim and Barb have helped us transition Blackboard support to DoIT’s new call tracking system, Request Tracker, or RT for short. As such, to coordinate (and document) demand for Bb support, it would be very helpful to DoIT if ALL Bb help requests are submitted using the RT request form, which is available in the myUMBC help menu or directly at http://my.umbc.edu/help/request. Alternately, you can call the help desk at 410.455.3838 or drop in by visiting Engineering Room 020.
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| Debra Arnold |
I also want to thank Debra Arnold, who is stepping up to provide day-to-day, tier 2 application support for Blackboard now that Bob Armstrong has joined the Johns Hopkins School of Engineering to support their distance education program. Deb has provided outstanding IT support and training to UMBC staff for many years, and has orbited the Bb support periphery before, by helping to support Blackboard communities and using Bb to support PeopleSoft finance and HR training. She also recently completed all requirements for her Master’s in Instructional Design at UMBC this summer.
Currently, Blackboard is used in about 50 percent of all 2,500 UMBC course sections each semester. This includes 65 percent of all 1,000 faculty and 95 percent of all 12,000 students. DoIT has a little more than two (2) FTE support staff dedicated to Blackboard user support. Admittedly, informal benchmarking with other schools has shown an average of .25 FTE for every 1,000 students supported, so we’re sized just shy of where we should be for current usage. But with the new SA challenges, possible H1N1 closures or high absenteeism, and recent staffing changes, user patience and cooperation will be appreciated this semester, and will be important in sustaining efficient and effective Blackboard support.
2. We encourage faculty within departments to continue helping each other.
Long before our current challenges, we have always relied upon and tried to facilitate faculty learning from each other. This is one reason why we publish the most active Blackboard courses by discipline, as well as the past participants in the Summer & Winter Alternate Delivery Program.
True story: I once interviewed a faculty member about student reports of her good Blackboard use (in front of colleague from her department). When we finished the interview, her colleague said: “I had no idea what you were doing. Can we have lunch?” I just smiled and realized half of my job is connecting faculty who can and want to learn from each other. Hopefully, our lists of experienced Blackboard practitioners can do the same.
Of course, if faculty providing or requesting collegial help get stuck, please consult UMBC's Blackboard Help or submit a myUMBC help request to DoIT and we’ll do our best to solve problems, provide effective workarounds or escalate the problem to Blackboard directly.
3. We will begin another experiment this year by outsourcing our Blackboard support to Presidium Learning, Inc., which provides 24/7 support, and a 95 percent first-call resolution rate.
Details are still being ironed out and will be communicated more fully, but working in concert with the DoIT help desk which will provide walk in support, all UMBC students, faculty and staff will soon be able to get 24/7 Blackboard support via phone, IM chat or an online knowledgebase. In addition, DoIT staff will be freed up for more advanced issues and opportunities, including trend and root cause analysis of our most frequent user support demands, and how these benchmark with other institutions running Blackboard installations of our size and composition.
Perhaps most importantly, if the university is closed or challenged by absenteeism for an extended period due to the H1N1 flu, Blackboard support can continue with off-site support, in case DoIT staff also get sick and can’t provide it. That said, DoIT staff will continue to provide on-site consults, preferably for small groups or cohorts from the same department, but we ask the campus community to first try to use Presidium support.
Finally, we hope the addition of Presidium will provide a much needed support structure for students, who have often had to rely on faculty for informal technical support, since there just aren’t enough DoIT support staff to meet everyone’s needs. In particular, we think the 24/7 access will be a welcome addition to students when they’re working late at night and having technical problems.
It is important to note that the agreement with Presidium is a one-year pilot only. A growing number of colleges and universities are considering or implementing outsourced support, but we want to learn the pros and cons of UMBC doing so. In addition to helping with a staffing crunch and possibly increased support due to H1N1 this year, we think it is worth conducting the pilot now as part of DoIT’s overall plan to improve end-user support.
If you have questions or suggestions about UMBC’s Blackboard support strategies, please contact me at fritz@umbc.edu or 410.455.6596.
Thanks,
John Fritz
Asst. VP, Instructional Technology & New Media
Div. of Information Technology
Posted by fritz at 4:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 17, 2009
Suggestions for Instructional Continuity in Case of An H1N1 Outbreak
Earlier this summer, Provost Elliot Hirshman, in consultation with the Division of Information Technology (DoIT), sent an advisory to all faculty about why and how they might want to consider teaching online in the event of an extended closure of campus due to an H1N1 "Swine Flu" outbreak. The full text of the advisory follows:
Context
In response to the World Health Organization’s recent declaration of an H1N1 level 6 flu pandemic, the University needs to move rapidly to facilitate instructional continuity in the event of a campus closure. Instructional continuity is absolutely essential to ensure the academic progress of our students and the financial stability of the University should the campus be forced to close due to pandemic flu.
The steps proposed here are designed to address the circumstance in which campus is closed, but the information technology infrastructure of the campus remains intact. In this circumstance, remote instruction/distance learning will be necessary to continue courses.
The University recognizes that faculty members may wish to use different approaches to remote instruction and respects the rights of faculty members to pursue any of a range of available approaches. The University also recognizes that some courses (e.g., courses requiring access to specialized equipment or materials) may be difficult to continue remotely. The goal is to continue as many courses as possible to maintain academic progress and financial stability.
Specific Procedures
Some faculty members may teach courses that permit remote instruction, but they may not be familiar with the technology necessary to carry out this instruction. The following steps are designed to assist these faculty members prepare for remote instruction in the most convenient manner possible.
Step 1: If they are not already, all faculty members who are teaching courses in the fall semester should become familiar with the basic functioning of Blackboard. To access tutorial instructions, visit http://www.umbc.edu/blackboard/help or log in to Blackboard via myUMBC (or directly at http://blackboard.umbc.edu) and review the “Blackboard Help” tab at the top of the screen. Faculty may want to visit the “Getting Started” link first.
All Blackboard courses have a student manual (under “tools”) and an instructor manual (under “control panel”), but Faculty members should be able to carry out three basic functions:
- Turn their UMBC Blackboard course on. |
- Post documents (e.g., a syllabus) on blackboard. |
- Send an E-mail to all class members. |
Step 2: Faculty members should consider the lecture, document or presentation posting and discussion requirements of their fall courses. The material below indicates how to use Blackboard to accomplish these tasks remotely. Faculty members should conduct a trial or practice usage of the referenced capacities to ensure that they can post materials remotely and students can access these materials, if necessary.
For Audio Lectures:
- Record lecture using an MP3 recorder or Microphone (recorders will be distributed to academic departments for usage from DoIT) and upload the recording using Blackboard's file upload capacity (N.B., the process for recording and posting MP3 files can be learned in less than ½ hour and will be critical to instructional continuity in some courses.)
- Through the hybrid learning website, you can learn many other “effective practices” for how to create and publish online audio or video lectures: visit http://www.umbc.edu/oit/hybrid/practice.
For Discussions (text-based):
- For asynchronous (not at the same time, not at the same place) text-based communication, use the Blackboard Discussion Board capacity.
- For synchronous (same time, but not at the same place) text-based communication (often known as “chat”), use Blackboard’s built in “Virtual Classroom” capacity (under the “Communications” course menu).
Document and Presentation Posting
- Use Blackboard’s document upload capacity referenced above.
Additional Guidance from DoIT
- For faculty members who have mastered the above-referenced approaches, OIT STRONGLY RECOMMENDS using “Wimba Classroom” for synchronous text-based chat. In addition to being more stable and full-featured than Bb’s built in “virtual classroom,” Wimba can also allow you and your students to use voice-based email, discussions and real-time synchronous chat. It takes a little time to learn the effective protocols for conducting synchronous text or voice-based discussions or chats without everyone talking at once, but with practice, it can be done.
- For more information on using Wimba, visit the UMBC Wimba guides and tutorials on the UMBC Blackboard Help tab, or Wimba’s own support site at http://www.wimba.com/services/support.
- Through the hybrid learning website, you can learn many other “effective practices” for managing and assessing online discussions or chats: visit http://www.umbc.edu/oit/hybrid/practice.
Resources Available to Support Faculty
In addition to the on-line tutorials referenced above, there are two forms of assistance available to faculty members.
- Peer assistance from faculty and staff colleagues is available. Deans will be working with Department Chairs and other members of the Council of Deans to identify peers who are available to consult with faculty members as they become more familiar with the referenced instructional technologies. Examples include the following:
- DoIT staff are available for additional consultation
- John Fritz, Asst VP, Instructional Technology & New Media (410.455.6596 or fritz@umbc.edu)
- Debra Arnold, IT Training Support Specialst (410.455.3234 or darnold@umbc.edu)
- Jim Keys, Help Desk Consultant (410.455.3127 or keysj@umbc.edu)
- Joan Costello, Classroom Technology/Wimba (410.455.3685 or jcoste1@umbc.edu)
- John Fritz, Asst VP, Instructional Technology & New Media (410.455.6596 or fritz@umbc.edu)
Posted by fritz at 4:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 14, 2009
FA2009 Bb Course Shells Created 7/30, Use Request Form if Yours Wasn't
As is our practice normally, Fall 2009 Bb shells have been created for all courses listed in UMBC's official Schedule of Classes (SOC) on 7/30/09. By default, a Bb course shell is unavailable (to students) until the instructor of record makes it "available."
INSTRUCTORS: If your course was not listed in the SOC on 7/30/09 OR a cross-list with another course was not officially indicated in the SOC, please submit a Bb Course Creation Request.In addition, if you or your department intended one Blackboard course to be "cross-listed" or "associated" with another course, this needs to appear in UMBC's official Schedule of Classes for Blackboard to automatically do so. Please contact the registrar’s office to make official cross-lists, so that all students will be properly enrolled in the correct Blackboard course shell.
STUDENTS: You MUST be officially enrolled in a UMBC course via myUMBC to be "auto-enrolled" in a Bb course "shell." You will see them when they have been made "Available" to students by the instructor.
If you have questions or need help, please consult the Blackboard Help tab inside Blackboard or directly at www.umbc.edu/blackboard/help, or contact the DoIT Help Desk at 410.455.3838, ECS Room 020 or submit a help request via myUMBC or directly at http://my.umbc.edu/help/request
Posted by fritz at 4:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 14, 2009
Use Wimba Classroom for Great Communication
In this age of sustainability and fear of contagion, there is a tool in Blackboard that can help with both of these issues – Wimba Classroom. Wimba Classroom is an online delivery tool – great for hybrid classes and distance education, but general classes and meetings should embrace it also. It could save travel time and expenses for meetings and guest lecturers (non-UMBC people can be invited to participate). Maybe all classes should be prepared to meet this way - no losing important lecture/class time with school closings due to weather/health , etc.
Participants need internet access and a headphone with a microphone. The presentation can be archived for review or later access if there is a problem with their connection. With Wimba Classroom you can present a power point presentation, share whiteboards, applications, desktops, websites and host guest lecturers. Many classes require group presentations –use WC to set up group space for your students to meet, discuss, plan their work.
Please check out tutorial presentations, documentation, etc from the Wimba site - http://wimba.com/services. On campus, our Wimba info person is Joan Costello in AC IV 219, x53685, jcostello@umbc.edu. She will be happy to meet one on one, or a group to help you get started.
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May 8, 2009
FYI: Hybrid Course Re-Design Workshop 6/4
The Office of Summer, Winter & Special Programs (OSWSP), in cooperation with DoIT and the Faculty Development Center, will again sponsor an “Hybrid Course Re-Design Workshop” for those interested in learning how to develop a hybrid class. If the course is to be offered during WT2010, OSWSP provides a one-time, $1,500 course development stipend as part of its Alternate Delivery Program (ADP).
The Hybrid Course Re-design workshop consists of an all-day workshop focusing on pedagogy and good course design in the morning, a panel discussion from past participants during lunch, and effective practices using instructional technology in the afternoon. Both sessions are required and will be held in ITE, Room 456. Following the face-2-face workshop sessions, participants who wish to receive the one-time, $1,500 ADP stipend will be required to present two “learning objects” During the Fall 2009 semester (dates TBD). While the Hybrid workshop is NOT required to participate in the ADP, it has been shown to help faculty prepare to meet the ADP’s requirements.
The ADP faculty presentations are open to the campus, especially departments of participating faculty, and will be videotaped for online viewing by future participants through UMBC’s iTunesU and UMBCTube video distribution sites. To register, go to the Hybrid Design Workshop training site.
Posted by rarmstro at 9:41 AM | TrackBack
March 15, 2009
Duke Recommends a UMBC "Effective Practice" -- Online Discussion Portfolios
Andrea Novicki from Duke University added a new post on the Center for Instructional Technology's (CIT) blog about a UMBC hybrid learning effective practice: using participation portfolios to manage and assess online discussions.
Novicki attended John Fritz' "participation portfolio" presentation at the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) annual meeting in Orlando in January of this year. Basically, a "participation portfolio," consists of the following:
- An instructor-developed "rubric" that defines a quality discussion post and reply;
- A portfolio template that allows students to copy & paste their best 3-5 examples of a discussion board participation (based on the rubric).
- A "self-grade" that students submit, and instructors can accept, raise or lower--based on the "evidence" students supply that meets the rubric.
The "participation portfolio" and other "effective practices" were developed through a collaboration between faculty and instructional technology staff in UMBC's Alternate Delivery Program.
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