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What is Blackboard Learn by Anthology?
Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise learning management systems vendor. Blackboard was founded in 1997 and became a public company in 2004. The company provides education, mobile, communication, and commerce software and related services to clients including education providers, corporations and…
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- Assignments (30)9.090%
- Learning reporting & analytics (26)8.989%
- Mobile friendly (30)8.989%
- Learning content (27)6.161%
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What is Blackboard Learn by Anthology?
Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise learning management systems vendor. Blackboard was founded in 1997 and became a public company in 2004. The company provides education, mobile, communication, and commerce software and related services to clients including education providers, corporations and…
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Open LMS (formerly Moodlerooms) is an open source learning management system for educational institutions, formerly supported by Blackboard, and now part of the Learning Technologies Group.
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Tovuti's cloud-based learning management system (LMS) gives users tools to create, deliver, and track the effectiveness of eLearning programs. It helps users to create engaging interactive courses in minutes with Tovuti's interactive modules and a course creation suite. Users can build as many…
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What is Blackboard Learn by Anthology?
Blackboard Learn enables educators to deliver the inclusive, consistent educational experiences learners design, while operating alongside current tools and integrations. Backed by a community of millions of students, instructors, and administrators across more than 70 countries, Blackboard Learn has supports collaboration with educators.
With hundreds of SaaS based features that foster collaboration, personalize the learning experience, extend accessibility, and keep learners engaged, Blackboard Learn provides collaborative workflows for students and instructors alike. Some key benefits include:
Mobile-friendly course experience
Blackboard Learn encourages a more
consistent experience across a student’s courses, allowing them to more
easily locate what they need, even on-the-go.
The best test taking experience for learners
Flexible assessment types and customizable feedback options allow instructors to support
unique learning needs.
An inclusive learning environment
Every learner is unique and expects a
personalized learning experience. Blackboard Learn empowers
students to express their identity and present themselves as they want to.
No charge for crucial data
Institutions, instructors and learners
need access to actionable data insights to create engaging learning
experiences. This is part of a Blackboard Learn license, enabling learners to keep track of their
own progress and get the support they need, and empowering instructors identify struggling students early on.
An LMS built in collaboration with educators
Built in collaboration with instructors and learners from all over the world, Anthology states they focus their product roadmap based on user needs. Its users help guide the direction of Learn through the insider program, weekly focus groups, Anthology Idea Exchange, and a community site.
Blackboard Learn by Anthology Features
Learning Management Features
- Supported: Course authoring
- Supported: Course catalog or library
- Supported: Player/Portal
- Supported: Mobile friendly
- Supported: Progress tracking & certifications
- Supported: Assignments
- Supported: Compliance management
- Supported: Learning administration
- Supported: Learning reporting & analytics
- Supported: eLearning
- Supported: Assessments
- Supported: Live online learning
- Supported: In-person learning
- Supported: Video learning
- Supported: SCORM-compliant
- Supported: Social learning
- Supported: Gamification
- Supported: GDPR Compliant Learning
- Supported: Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning
Blackboard Learn by Anthology Screenshots
Blackboard Learn by Anthology Videos
Blackboard Learn by Anthology - Product Overview
An overview of Blackboard Learn Ultra presented by Anthology's VP of Product, Jim Chalex.
Blackboard Learn by Anthology Competitors
Blackboard Learn by Anthology Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Mobile Web |
| Supported Languages | Arabic, Chinese- Simplified, Chinese- Traditional, Danish, Dutch, English- Australia, English- United Kingdom, English- United States, French- Canada, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese- Brazilian, Portuguese- Portugal, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Welsh, Czech, Polish, Malay, Thai, |
Blackboard Learn by Anthology Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise learning management systems vendor. Blackboard was founded in 1997 and became a public company in 2004. The company provides education, mobile, communication, and commerce software and related services to clients including education providers, corporations and government organizations. As of December 2010, Blackboard software and services are used by over 9,300 institutions in more than 60 countries. Blackboard Learn is the company's flagship LMS, supporting course management, test & assessment design and administration, and is extensible via Blackboard's suite of addable modules.
Canvas, Infor Learning Management (LMS), and D2L Brightspace are common alternatives for Blackboard Learn by Anthology.
Reviewers rate Learning administration highest, with a score of 9.9.
The most common users of Blackboard Learn by Anthology are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Recommendations
Based on user reviews, here are the three most common recommendations for Blackboard Learn:
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Consider Blackboard Learn for higher education and communication with parents. Users recommend it as the learning management system of choice, especially for higher education institutions. It is also recommended for effective communication with parents.
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Explore and utilize interactive functions. Many users find Blackboard Learn easy to manage and recommend taking the time to explore and utilize its interactive functions. The platform is considered convenient for classes and easy to use.
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Take advantage of Blackboard's tools for education. Users believe that Blackboard Learn offers a complete and effective educational forum. It is recommended for institutions with a large number of students, as it allows for uploading assignments, having timed tests, and recording live videos. Expert guidance is suggested during implementation.
While these are the most common recommendations, it is also advised to do research and consider the return on investment before choosing a learning management system. Additionally, some users suggest exploring alternative options and trying trials of other systems before making a final decision.
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Reviews
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February 07, 2019
Blackboard Learn Review
Blackboard Learn is our online and course management software that we've been using for several years now at our university. It is used across campus for both traditional classroom planning and for online courses and students. We use it from first-year freshmen undergrad students all the way through graduate and adult/online learners. It helps us manage our online and some traditional components for faculty and students.
- Great for online course management.
- Ease of use for the Registrars, office, and staff.
- Online learning courses go very, very well for students and faculty.
- The interface is a little hard to navigate at first.
- Some of the components for course management are a little clunky compared to competitors.
- Can be capped out on some course offerings.
February 06, 2019
Blackboard Learn - great for classrooms
It’s being used across the university as a class hub.
- Great file repository.
- Good for in-depth documentation layouts.
- Good for record keeping.
- Better mobile integration.
- More online training.
- More walkthrough samples.
February 06, 2019
BlackBoard learn - a solid course management system
Blackboard is the course management system used by both recent employers. I have used it for several years as a student too. The system is very reliable, easy to navigate and customize. It includes several modules, one of which is blackboard collaborate which enable live remote sessions.
Having online students is so common these days and having all course collaboration and live sessions in one secure centralized location is a necessity for both students and universities.
Having online students is so common these days and having all course collaboration and live sessions in one secure centralized location is a necessity for both students and universities.
- Instructors can easily customize the course page.
- It has the capability to do online exams, class discussions, automatic grading, and live sessions.
- Integrates with local LDAP and single sign-on services.
- Although the current graphic user interface is easy to use, it can be improved with larger fonts, dynamic menus, and attractive graphics.
- The system does not include a module to pay the school fee.
- The roster tab lacks detailed information about students.
January 30, 2019
Blackboard Learn: Using as a Student
I was a user of Blackboard as a student, I took a certification to further my career and it was built in Blackboard Learn. I would suggest using it in my institution, as I feel it is very user-friendly, easy to follow, and has through instructions on how to use.
- The organization of files
- You can have different tabs to separate items to make it easier for student use
- Submission of testing and assignments was clear, and easy to use.
- I did not find anything the software itself could do better, just the way the administrator had the information set up in the courses.
January 28, 2019
Making the most of a Blackboard Learning Management System
Blackboard is one of the leading Learning Management Systems (LMS) is the education industry. The platform is fairly flexible and integrates well with most Student Information Systems (SIS) allowing a school or higher education university to automate the creation of a 'website' for each section it may be running from semester to semester as well as supporting the manual creation of 1-off 'Organization' sites as needed.
Using the Blackboard LMS allows faculty who may be technical novices to easily share files, store and grade assignments and scan written submissions for originality. While the initial course shell or template is fairly basic, a user with basic HTML/CSS knowledge can unlock a lot of the system's potential. There are also ways to add javascript enhanced elements and SCORM modules from programs such as Articulate or Captivate, but that is most likely more suited for advanced technical users such as Instructional Technologist or Designers.
Using the Blackboard LMS allows faculty who may be technical novices to easily share files, store and grade assignments and scan written submissions for originality. While the initial course shell or template is fairly basic, a user with basic HTML/CSS knowledge can unlock a lot of the system's potential. There are also ways to add javascript enhanced elements and SCORM modules from programs such as Articulate or Captivate, but that is most likely more suited for advanced technical users such as Instructional Technologist or Designers.
- The assignment tool is very helpful, it allows for individual and group assignment submission and can scan all work for originality via the integration of SafeAssign. This feature also acts as a repository for resolving student grade challenges and in collecting data for accreditation efforts.
- The open HTML features allow for incorporation of video very easily through embed codes or mashup tools
- Communication - the announcement, emails, discussion boards, and group tools allow enhance the classroom and allow students to stay engaged without the need to know 50 different email addresses.
- Blackboard ingrates very well with hundred of 3rd party tools either through a building block installion on LTI link. Very help for incorporating publishing content from a textbook for example.
- The Mobile features off the site and lagging behind, especially if you try to access the site through phone on safari or chrome vs the BB Mobile app.
- While Blackboard allows for HTML and CSS it has a bad habit of throwing extra tags and other forms 'of junk' HTML after saving that slow down the system and hurt accessibility for screen readers.
- The UI of BB Learn overall is dated and in major need of modern re-design
- BB Learn lack a common search feature, mean students have no choice but the hunt and peck around course looking a specfic peice of content.
- While this may be a result of my version of the system being self-hosted I have found Blackboard to overall be a slower platform than other LMS systems such as Canvas or Coursera
December 17, 2018
Blackboard is great for student grading management
Blackboard Learn is used by almost everyone at the University of Alabama. I use it to manage student organizations and for classes I teach. For large student organizations, Blackboard is essential for keeping everyone on the same page. We use it to share documents and important information because we can ensure it will be sent to all of the necessary recipients.
- Blackboard is pretty intuitive to learn. It's not very hard to figure out what you need to do.
- The assessments are easy to create and easy for students to take. The deadlines are helpful as well.
- It's nice that there isn't a limit for the content that you are able to put on Blackboard.
- On Mac specifically, when you pull up the full grade center, for some reason it won't let you scroll over.
- Deleting everything is SO time consuming. There isn't a way to bulk delete columns for grading.
February 05, 2018
Black Board Learn master for excellence in on -line teaching
BlackBoard Learn is used as the education platform for teaching online nursing students. It is used to provide classes, tests, student presentations and online conferences
- Allows an on-line classroom to be divided into breakout rooms when smaller work groups are needed
- Allows in a fairly easy framework to navigate a forum that interacts via camera & audio in a synchronous on -line class
- Allows classes to be recorded and effortless archiving of the class recordings
- The recent upgraded version has affected the connectivity for the instructors & students with frequent bumps out of the session - breaking the teaching thread
- Loading of presentations can have technology glitches that don't occur from student to student or instructor to instructor
- Company support team is reluctant to help on-line support unless the facility/organization's support team have been utilized first, which often is not possible when problems occur after hours when evening classes are in session and organization's IT staff leave at 5 pm.
- Grading center in BlackBoard was recently upgraded and this has increased the labor intensity of the instructor grading assignments within BlackBoard
September 08, 2017
Great collaboration between Students and Teachers
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I used Blackboard back in college and it was a great tool for connecting students with their professors. It made it so easy to access assignments or different handouts from class that you may have missed. In addition, it provides a way for you to virtually hand in assignments if you miss class or if it's easier for the professor to do it that way. The platform also allows for collaboration among student groups for class, because you're able to have discussion boards and your own group pages to collaborate with one another.
- Collaboration
- Discussion
- Connecting educators and students
- User-friendly
- Access to assignments
- Access to class information/updates
- Not very visually appealing
- Would be nice if all professors adopted it, some refuse to use it
- Frequently get errors when sometimes handing in assignments or uploading documents
August 18, 2017
Blackboard Just So-So
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Blackboard is the learning management system used by the faculty and students of our college. Blackboard provides an online place to manage all aspects of course administration for faculty and a place for students to access course content and grades. Blackboard is used by most faculty for at least posting a syllabus, but use of other features varies per professor.
- Blackboard has purchased a number of companies to add functionality to their product
- Their customer support is inconsistent. Sometimes it is fairly good, but right now we are more often frustrated by the lack of concern for what the customer needs. What company tells a user that they are aware that something is broken but that they are choosing to not fix it? Blackboard does.
- Things that the user needs to do are buried down a few layers and are not intuitive to find. For instance, to make a course available, the user has to go to the course control panel, click "Customization" and then "Properties." Then it is necessary to scroll down to find the "Make course available?" question and click the "Yes" radio button. This could be so much simpler! Just add a toggle button at the top of the instructor interface that says "Make Available?" with the ability to toggle between yes and no. They already do something similar with the edit course function.
- The Grade Center is clunky and not intuitive. Faculty complain most about this feature.
March 29, 2017
Blackboard okay and not okay
Blackboard is used as a learning platform for online and campus classes for students to access learning information. The software addresses the need of giving students access to information to learn.
- Blackboard is fairly easily to use, no large learning curve is needed.
- Blackboard has very little down time.
- Blackboard several add-on functionalities that add value.
- The clickable rubric is a great tool...although the point system should not be broken down to such tiny small points.
- Blackboard has a lot of room for improvement in terms of notifications. If a student posts an assignment or updates something there is no notification upon logging to make a professor aware.
- Using videos in Blackboard is very challenging, if you design your own and want to upload them. They used to appear on the home page but they no longer do.
- The threaded discussions are hard to follow because every thread opens rather than allowing the reader to select the threads they want to read.
- The notification for a makeup exam or an overridden grade are the same notification in the gradebook versus if the grades updated automatically as some of their competition programs do.
- Blackboard is my least favorite system to work with due to not be as user friendly as other programs.
- The clickable rubrics are great, but they should focus on whole points instead of .1, .2, .3, .4, and so on.
December 13, 2016
Blackboard Review
Blackboard is currently being used across the whole organization. It serves as our main learning LMS at the university to distribute resource materials, upload student assignments, gradebook, and main online course tool as well.
- Easy to use. It has an intuitive interface that instructors can readily customize.
- Easy to copy a course onto new versions for follow-on semesters.
- Easy gradebook for students and instructors to keep track of grades.
- Does not sync gradebook well with all other platforms e.g. with WebAssign, which I use for online homework assignments.
- Not easy to create html-free surveys. Usually there are some tags inside the saved response files.
- Not easy to write Math.
September 26, 2016
Blackboard is an easy to use LMS.
I have worked for multiple institutions that have used Blackboard as its primary LMS for online course delivery. Blackboard Learn integrates with several publisher textbooks, such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill. However, without an integrated CMS, user and course data must be managed manually, which can be time-consuming and tedious if mismanaged.
Blackboard Collaborate could use some improvement as it does not function on par with comparable video conference software. Its integration into Blackboard makes Collaborate one less system for learners to log into, but its functionalities are limited. Adobe Connect can be linked within Blackboard, but still launches externally.
Blackboard Collaborate could use some improvement as it does not function on par with comparable video conference software. Its integration into Blackboard makes Collaborate one less system for learners to log into, but its functionalities are limited. Adobe Connect can be linked within Blackboard, but still launches externally.
- Textbook integration: Instructors can easily pair courses with publisher content, such as quizzes, educational videos, and online texts.
- Discussion boards: Students can easily discuss topics in Blackboard forums, which offers nested views for easier organization of replies.
- The grade book is easy to manage data and set up.
- Easy for learners to access across institiutions because Blackboard is an industry standard.
- Blackboard needs to improve their mobile access as it should be integrated into Learn, not a separate entity altogether.
- Blackboard Collaborate crashes and freezes during delivery of live training events and it has minimal functionality.
- The Common Cartridge does not function well when moving content from one LMS to another. It loads everything as a link and opens in a new plain text window, making workflow tedious. If migrating many courses between Blackboard, and say, Canvas, for example, Blackboard will recommend a third party company to handle the migration instead of fixing the issue in their system to get the Common Cartridge to load properly.
September 23, 2016
Sadly, we can no longer advocate for Blackboard
Sadly, we finally left Blackboard this year. We used it at this institution successfully for many years, and I used it at my previous position for many years. At one time, I truly believed in the product, and was relatively happy with the support we received, and with the way the company itself was working on behalf of its customers, and education in general.
We became disheartened after the company was sold, people in key positions were let go or constantly moved around, and our support began to dwindle. Obviously we were not the only ones, as we saw a dramatic decrease in market share, and many institutions such as ours leaving Blackboard.
May I also say that I never missed a chance to attend and present at regional user group meetings, as well as all the Blackboard World conferences, and I even co-founded, and single-handedly managed the Virginia Blackboard Users Group for six years. That's how strongly I once believed in Blackboard.
We became disheartened after the company was sold, people in key positions were let go or constantly moved around, and our support began to dwindle. Obviously we were not the only ones, as we saw a dramatic decrease in market share, and many institutions such as ours leaving Blackboard.
May I also say that I never missed a chance to attend and present at regional user group meetings, as well as all the Blackboard World conferences, and I even co-founded, and single-handedly managed the Virginia Blackboard Users Group for six years. That's how strongly I once believed in Blackboard.
- While we were using Blackboard, I thought they, at one point, were very collaborative with their customer base, even to the point of creating product development panels...users who could help them develop and evolve the product.
- I am sad to say that Blackboard simply became a commodity to be sold around. Good people lost jobs. Support waned. Prices soared. And no one really cared.
September 28, 2015
Blackboard Review
In my previous position, we were using Blackboard Learn through a consortium with Blended Schools Network to build a Virtual Academy for at risk students.
- Blackboard allowed for easy import and export of content from publishers like test generation in the Exam View Suite.
- The integration of Blackboard with Turn It In was also a positive of its use in the K-12 setting.
- Blackboard required significant training for new users to set up classes and incorporate their own content.
- The user management was a bit cumbersome, but this may have been due to Blended Schools restrictions.
September 25, 2015
Think twice before you approach the Blackboard.
It is being used across the entire organization to support Online Education for the the entire Organization. It also helps up organize our academics.
- It was easy for the end-user to accomplish tasks.
- It would extend to outside resources well.
- The backend software was almost unmanageable.
- Updates were poorly tested and often ended in downtime.
- Even Blackboard Managed Services has difficulity maintaining uptime.
Blackboard is the enterprise course management solution at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). All faculty, staff, and students have accounts on the system and every course each semester has a Blackboard course site available for faculty to use in their teaching. In addition, organization sites are used by a wide array of departments and student groups.
In addition to traditional face to face courses, the Blackboard learning environment is used by GVSU's online and hybrid classes as the virtual classroom, enabling faculty to deliver engaging content and media while providing active learning-based assignments and assessments which include student feedback. Blackboard powers a collaborative and high-touch campus community with communication tools that span the range of asynchronous (announcements, email, discussion boards, etc.) to synchronous tools that include Blackboard Enterprise Instant Messaging and real-time live capabilities with Blackboard Collaborate.
By leveraging the system to provide role-based information through personalized information with the Blackboard Community system portal, the university can fine tune messaging and help to communicate through the clutter. In addition, the Enterprise Survey tool within the Blackboard system helps to deliver surveys and serves as an effective way to learn the pulse of the faculty, staff, and students.
Blackboard powers the networked learning environment at GVSU.
In addition to traditional face to face courses, the Blackboard learning environment is used by GVSU's online and hybrid classes as the virtual classroom, enabling faculty to deliver engaging content and media while providing active learning-based assignments and assessments which include student feedback. Blackboard powers a collaborative and high-touch campus community with communication tools that span the range of asynchronous (announcements, email, discussion boards, etc.) to synchronous tools that include Blackboard Enterprise Instant Messaging and real-time live capabilities with Blackboard Collaborate.
By leveraging the system to provide role-based information through personalized information with the Blackboard Community system portal, the university can fine tune messaging and help to communicate through the clutter. In addition, the Enterprise Survey tool within the Blackboard system helps to deliver surveys and serves as an effective way to learn the pulse of the faculty, staff, and students.
Blackboard powers the networked learning environment at GVSU.
- Blackboard is an effortless, easy-to-use, and scalable environment that includes a suite of tools and capabilities that enhance face to face teaching while powering high quality online and hybrid teaching and learning.
- Blackboard empowers universities, colleges, and K12 schools with the ability to extend the boundaries of the classroom through content delivery, assessment, and a suite of communication tools.
- Blackboard provides an environment of customization, personalization, and integration through the Building Blocks program. This provides an effective way to extend the capabilities of the system through the addition of third party, open source, and home grown applications.
- Blackboard is focused on accessibility and the support of a variety of standards that include LTI and ADA.
- As Blackboard has grown in adoption, popularity, and use over the years, one challenge has been supporting a multitude of users and campus constituencies that are running a wide variety of hardware and software versions. The Blackboard listserv community has come along side of users to assist users by the sharing of clients, along with a newly renewed focus on end user support.
- With the wealth of tools and capabilities, as well as Blackboard acquisitions over the years, the integration of these tools has sometimes lagged and taken longer due to competing priorities with support, new product development, and maintenance. With new leadership at Blackboard in the past few years, the integration of a variety of solutions and tools is now a clear priority.
September 22, 2015
Blackboard works
Blackboard Learn is being utilized by our entire University to deliver fully online, blended, and face-to-face courses. Faculty use it to deliver content, assessments and communications with their students. It also facilitates asynchronous online student collaboration.
- Integrates seamlessly with many external vendors, services, & content providers.
- Provides a robust set of tools.
- Enables complex grading schemes.
- Allows for a highly organized content structure.
- Needs responsive design for mobile users.
- Course copy process often breaks html based modules.
September 18, 2015
Why our small college pays for Blackboard instead of Moodle, an open source software product.
I work for a small liberal arts college that is state run. We use Blackboard primarily for supplemental course materials, such as PowerPoints, assignments, assessments and student grades and we use it for 100% fully deployed online courses. We average about 40-60 online courses and 250-300 supplemental courses. About 85% of our students use Blackboard in some manner. We also work with the K-12 community and off campus programming. Web courses, webinars, business meetings and dual credit courses for high school students are being used in Blackboard. We also have a full online program developed specifically for the Department of Military Affairs and the Department of Juvenile Justice. Our newest project involves online courses that are combined with our students and international students developed through the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) initiative. We currently have three COIL courses that work specifically with students in Spain and have plans to develop other courses in a few different countries.
- Blackboard is very detailed. It has all the bells and whistles anyone can ask for in a Learning Management system. Especially for the instructor. Features like the retention center keeps the instructors engaged and helps students who may need a little extra attention.
- Blackboard is very easy for the students and the instructors to use. There are a lot of training materials developed by Blackboard (and by other schools), including written manuals and videos that students and instructors can watch.
- Blackboard has a lot extra features in modules that can be downloaded and installed by the administrator that can make your instance unique to any other school.
- Blackboard is very helpful and quick to provide a solution when there is an issue. The technical support is fantastic and are always willing to help you with any issue.
- The mathematical functions in Blackboard are weak and hard to use for our math instructors. Most people don't even know that a whiteboard containing mathematical functions exists and when they do learn, it is so confusing that the instructor gives up.
- The mathematical calculations in the Grade Center are weak. It does not take into account the null values so the averages are sometimes skewed. I have to remind instructors that they have to put a zero into the null value or their averages will not be correct. It is also very difficult if an instructor wants to create an average, then add them together and then average the total points. In other words, if the instructors wans to do anything besides a basic class average, it requires quite a bit of work.
- The browser compatibility issues need a lot of work. Most of our students expect to use Internet Explorer and then have a lot of issues with Blackboard, or Java does an update and everything doesn't work like it should. Blackboard needs to find a better, faster way of keeping up with the updates in browsers and Java. Our students get frustrated, and I get frustrated, when I have to constantly remind them to use a browser other than Internet Explorer.
- Blackboard claims that it is customizable however to make the "look and feel" of the Learning Management System unique is very limited. The log in screen is customizable however doing so is difficult and requires some coding knowledge. Although I have managed to customize our log in screen (because I am a software engineer), I have spoken with a lot of other schools who did not have someone on staff who could write code for the customization.
September 18, 2015
Blackboard Brand
Blackboard is being used by my organization because students and teachers use Blackboard to facilitate curriculum and learn curriculum.
- Blackboard is easy to navigate
- Blackboard allows teachers to move back and forth between various screens.
- Blackboard provides faculty and staff with email access through the university.
- Blackboard provides tutorials on how to navigate the system.
- Blackboard does not provide regular software updates. I've used Blackboard for the past eight years and not a lot has changed.
September 17, 2015
Blackboard is Good, Not Great!
My institution utilizes Blackboard in all three of our colleges for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs. It is utilized in web-enhanced, blended and fully online courses for content delivery and teacher-to-student and student-to-student collaboration. The product is also integrated with Blackboard Collaborate for synchronous communication, Respondus for test-generation purposes, and Turnitin for plagiarism detection.
- The product engages students well with the course content being studied.
- The product engages students in a community of learners with various educational technologies.
- The product allows educators to interact with their students in online courses so that they feel as if a real person is behind the posted course information and content.
- Blackboard Support representatives should be more knowledgeable of their products. This is detrimental during busy times throughout the academic year.
- Software add-ons are not always functional and easily integrated with the platform.
- The Grade Center layout and options do not allow for full customization by the instructor (attendance capability, using personalized calculation formulas, etc.).
Blackboard is used as a course management system on campus at our institution. It's utilized for courses, training, and special projects. It allows instructors to teach online as well as provide online materials, assignments, and exams for on-campus or hybrid courses. It is being used as a training method for some training programs and initiatives on campus to provide course materials and asynchronous training as well as a supplement to face-to-face training. For special initiatives and projects, this is being used to collaborate and communicate with team members.
- Blackboard provides a service where you can lock down content to a particular audience, which is very useful for coursework.
- Blackboard has a large number of features, which allows instructors to implement their course in whatever way they see fit. Many less mature products on the market today do not have quite as many features.
- Blackboard is a mature product, with years of experience in the LMS market. When implementing a product with less maturity, it's more difficult to gauge whether or not there will be significant changes in the future for products and/or company structure.
- Blackboard's interface is old and clunky. They are developing a new "Ultra" experience, but it's only available to a very limited number of customers. This old design makes it less than pleasant for sophisticated web users, and students are becoming more sophisticated in their usage of online technology.
- Blackboard does have a feature rich environment, however these features are often overly complicated and buggy. Blackboard needs to work on making their system more easy to use and get out of the way to allow instructors to teach.
- Administrator visibility and statistics are available... for an extra fee. Many institutions cannot afford to increase their licensing costs, so Blackboard needs to find out a way to make some useful information available in their core product for no additional fees.
- Increased integration with "the cloud" such as OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and the like would make it much easier for students to submit assignments, and for instructors to add content to their courses.
September 15, 2015
Blackboard Learn and their Managed Hosting architecture works!
Blackboard is used across the entire university and is an integral part of every college. Blackboard is used for things as simple as electronic file delivery and emailing students, and as complex as 100% online course delivery.
- Blackboard is very easy for novice technology users to pick up and begin to build a course. They have really expanded on their online help documentation over the last couple years to facilitate new users to the product.
- It is very easy to integrate Blackboard with our SIS system for automatic course creation and enrollment adds and drops. We have automated everything and have little to no hands-on for higher administrative tasks.
- Behind the Blackboard Support is quick to respond when tickets are opened requesting software updates, application bugs, usage questions, etc.
- One major flaw in Blackboard Learn is their Software Updates module. This module is supposed to allow hosted customers, such as ourselves, to be able to apply updates to the software on our own time. Unfortunately, almost every update has this disclaimer: "Managed Hosting clients should create a case on Behind the Blackboard to schedule the recommended server restarts after Building Blocks are updated. To expedite the scheduling process, please include a desired day and time for the restarts to begin." The Software Updates module is pointless if we can't run those updates ourselves.
- There are little issues that pop up on occasion, such as template colors on new courses occasionally not being set correctly and odd error messages that could be a bit more detailed, but all in all, the application has been very bug free for us since we moved to Managed Hosting (Blackboard's hosting service) in 2013.
- Blackboards mobile applications are fairly bare-boned and don't offer anything more than what you can get via a mobile web browser.
March 13, 2015
Blackboard Review- Chalk and Eraser?
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Blackboard was used as an online resource for courses in all departments at the University of Georgia. It served as a tool to disseminate syllabi, course readings, handouts, Power Point slides, notes, and study guides. It also allowed instructors to create discussion boards for students to share their thoughts, questions, and comments regarding course topics. Some instructors used Blackboard as a means for collecting written assignments and administering quizzes. Finally, it served as an online database for grades and course progress. It addressed several problems, including: handing out readings/course packets, administering quizzes, and making sure that students had a safe space for sharing their comments with their peers as well as with their instructors.
- The email service in Blackboard allowed teachers to send group messages to the entire class very easily.
- The discussion board feature of Blackboard helped facilitate group discussion and gave students who may have been shy in class or did not think of a comment in time a place to share their thoughts.
- The grade book feature of Blackboard allowed students to quickly access their progress in the course.
- Posting slides and presentation notes allowed students to come to class more prepared.
- The email service operated only within Blackboard. In order to have messages forwarded out of the system, one needed to change the settings. This led to a number of emails being lost, especially when students were not familiar with the system.
- Posting course readings online could be problematic because students would not take the time to read articles on their computer or devices. Hard copies tended to get better results.
- Discussion boards could sometimes be hard to track. Replies to user comments could get lost in the board, resulting in a lack of response.
January 25, 2015
It may be great for some, but it has been a nightmare for us
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Blackboard is being used to deliver webinars to customers both within the education system and for corporate clients. It allows for clients to participate in training without having to travel to a classroom. The business problems it addresses include clients' inability to get to training; overhead associated with physical classrooms; and flexibility for content delivery.
- Students can speak to the class if they have the correct hardware. This allows for a two-way conversation, when applicable.
- Students can virtually raise their hand, add emoticons to the chat and vote with canned answers. This makes up for the students' inability to always send audio.
- It's relatively easy to switch between pre-loaded content (slides) and a live share of your desktop. This makes it easier to give examples of the concept you're teaching.
- They need to find a way to eliminate the need for java. This is by far the biggest obstacle for the successful delivery of a webinar.
- The ability to use Blackboard on any platform is a must now, including mobile devices.
- There needs to be a way to monitor the quality of the internet connection as the moderator / instructor. We often have quality issues and drop-outs with no way of knowing what is at fault.
December 20, 2014
Reaching students in a virtual online learning environment through Blackboard Collaborate
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I currently use Blackboard Collaborate with my online teaching position at Insight School of Washington. We use Blackboard Collaborate as our live classroom with students. Students are required to attend a minimum of 1 hour of class connect time (Blackboard Collaborate). Each week we have a staff meeting that is also held in Blackboard Collaborate. Using Blackboard Collaborate allows our staff to connect with our students in a live environment.
- Blackboard allows teachers to present content to our online students by uploading PowerPoint presentations.
- Blackboard is a great tool for students to interact in a safe online environment.
- Blackboard has the ability for teachers to share their desktop and occupy a students desktop to help students with their academics and computer problems.
- Blackboard has the ability for teachers to share documents and websites live with students.
- On many occasions the Blackboard website has been down or our connection to Blackboard is disrupted at ISWA.
- Some platforms such as Mac Yosemite is not compatible with uploading PowerPoints. You have to upload your PowerPoint as an Open Office document.
- Blackboard could be better by making the tools more user friendly.