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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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What is Open LMS?
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.
What is Tovuti LMS?
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.
-
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
(1-25 of 37)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
January 20, 2023
Great for high school and college age students!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I used it as an alternative to our learning website during our COVID year of school. Some of our students understood how to use Blackboard better than they did Google Classroom. It helped me to better reach out to our students and gave them an alternative to Google Classroom. Some of my students even chose Blackboard over Google Classroom.
- Easier setup
- easier to upload materials
- easier to communicate with individual students
- I cannot think of an area where Blackboard Learn needs to improve.
Blackboard Learn is used across the entire organization. It is used by professors for classes and by the administration to provide information for new employees on how to use certain solutions or procedures that are currently in place for various software solutions.
- Easy maintenance
- Good support
- Friendly people
- Bad UI (unless you migrate to BB Ultra)
- Does not integrate well with other software solutions
- It is not very user-friendly
- It could be pricey
April 22, 2021
Higher priced LMS, but if you can budget it, Blackboard Learn is WELL worth the expense!
We use Blackboard Learn as a course management system for providing learning content to our students, facilitating collaboration, and streamlining communications between faculty and students. We use it institution wide. Blackboard Learn allows us to deliver courses to our students 100% online, hybrid or as a means to organize and disseminate materials for in person courses.
- Blackboard Learn makes submitting assignments electronically simple and provides a variety of built-in Web-based tools like e-portfolios, wikis, and blogs that our students use to create their own content.
- Blackboard Learn is intuitive and easy to navigate from a students perspective
- Blackboard Learn has many integrations available for connecting this LMS to other tools we use at our institution.
- Blackboard Learn requires cloud-based SaaS configuration which we were not set up for initially. This was an additional step for us before deployment
- Some new release courses lack features available in legacy courses, this tends to be a problem when we roll out upgrades, as we need to extend our testing phase to ensure all courses are functional
- Blackboard Learn is expensive. In comparison to its competition, there really isn't a reason (other than name recognition) that the software should be as much higher priced from it's competition as it is.
April 20, 2021
Learning Made easy
Blackboard Learn is currently being used as the learning management software to host courses that a student enrolls for a certain semester. Almost all the activities such as quizzes, classes, assignments and more are hosted on Blackboard Learn. I have used the mobile version as well. It is the perfect answer for students pursuing distance learning education along with their respective jobs. The best part is the Panopto video integration that allows students to listen to lectures at their convenience.
- Hosting of courses associated with a particular semester
- Integration with zoom and Panopto
- Grading of the respecitive courses and also hosts the submission of student work related to the particular home work assignments, quizzes etc.,
- Blackboard Learn has some limitations when it comes to submissions
- It is not that user friendly, I had to spend some time to get a hang of it in the beginning
- I have been struggling a bit with deletion of manually added courses
April 13, 2020
Blackboard Learn Review
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Blackboard is used as a platform for students to send and receive school work. This program is operated by teachers as a web-based user software device to connect them to their students. It is incredibly important now due to the current world events regarding distancing.
- It does what it is intended to do such as connecting students and teachers alike.
- It allows teachers to upload assignments online to eliminate the use of paper.
- Good platform to take tests and quizzes.
- Sign-on errors are common and it may inhibit the students' ability to submit and receive assignments as directed.
- It is hard to navigate at times if you are unfamiliar.
- Not exactly user friendly.
- Sometimes locations of assignments are not clear, very obscure.
- Not a very appealing layout.
January 31, 2020
Blackboard Learn- When you Need the Basics in Content Delivery and Instructional Management
Blackboard Learn is used primarily as an online classroom. Blackboard Collaborate can be utilized to facilitate and record real-time lectures and discussions, but the main function of Blackboard is to provide a secure online space for professors to load course guidelines, content and student grades, as well as host non-synchronous discussion boards. It is also used by academic support programs such as mentoring and tutoring to post content and planning support for student access.
- Accepts wide variety of file types.
- Choice of layout options to fit different styles of courses.
- Interface isn't very modern.
- Low use of icons and heavy text make it tricky to navigate.
January 31, 2020
Blackboard is solid from a student's perspective!
Blackboard Learn is being used by my organization primarily for e-learning for a variety of courses. It is used for reading, submitting, and tracking assignments as well as real-time feedback during assignments. Blackboard Learn "solves the problem" of holding classrooms electronically while giving students the flexibility to engage with the class on their own time with their varying schedules.
- Asynchronous classrooms.
- Clear communication of assignments.
- Semi-clunky UX.
- Slow page load times (depending on content).
January 28, 2020
Blackboard Learn offers easy to use content management
Blackboard Learn is a learning management system which allows instructors the ability to host course content, discussion boards, quizzes, and assignments in an easy-to-use interactive online system. Students access Blackboard Learn to review course materials that have been organized into sections and folders in a logical organizational structure. Each section inside a Blackboard Learn course can contain readings, assignments, discussions, and anything needed by students for that particular course module.
- Easy to use course navigation.
- Icons make it easy to distinguish content types.
- System announcements remain for months or years.
- Confusion can exist between the top-level navigation and course navigation.
January 12, 2020
User-friendly LMS
We use Blackboard Learn as our main learning management system to offer online and hybrid courses. Blackboard Learn is used across the whole organization. Blackboard makes learning online simpler for students.
- Creating effective assessments such as quizzes and assignments.
- Make collaboration easier through group work and discuss board posts.
- Online grading may need improvement through adding new features.
- In the grade center instructors need to go into manage organization in order to arrange and reorder columns. It would be nice to be able to move columns around as in an Excel sheet.
November 20, 2019
Blackboard is the Modern Blackboard for Learning
The University is using blackboard Learn I study to facilitate my doctoral coursework. The Blackboard Learn system allows the professor to share documents with students. Through Blackboard Learn, there are also forums and VoiceThread options to facilitate student learning if there are online modules. Additionally, work is uploaded to Blackboard Learn for the professor to grade so the student can receive useful and meaningful feedback.
- Document retrieval.
- Uploading work.
- Forums with other students.
- VoiceThread is cumbersome.
- I would appreciate the ability to access suggested resources beyond those provided by the professor.
- It would be good if we could see our classmates' submissions to learn from them.
Blackboard Learn is the supported Learning Management system at the University of Kansas. It is used across the organization, with a focus on academic courses. All courses in our PeopleSoft Student Information System automatically receive a corresponding Blackboard class. It allows students and instructors to coordinate assignments and grades for academic classes, and is sometimes used as a communication tool for non-academic use.
- Number of Integrations. Up until fairly recently, Blackboard Learn was the only option that scaled well for an institution of our size. They purchased competitors, and dominated marketshare. Due to this, most integrations from publishers or other educational technologies had to create a Blackboard integration.
- Adapting to Web Standards. Blackboard is currently releasing REST APIs and LTI integrations, and encouraging these as the standards moving forward. This is an excellent direction, and will allow Blackboard to be more competitive in the future.
- Customization. Each Blackboard course can be fully customized by the Instructor, using as much or as little as each individual instructor would like. For those that enjoy complete control - this is really useful.
- Self-Hosted Option. I anticipate this to eventually be depreciated, but currently we can host our Blackboard instance - which grants full flexibility and data analysis capabilities that are not available in the managed or cloud hosted options.
- Lack of APIs. Blackboard is catching up, but other competitors are much further along since those competitors started as a web-based company. The other factor holding these back is the different hosting options. All APIs are available for cloud-hosted, but not for managed-hosted or self-hosted.
- Lack of defaults. While highly configurable, Blackboard is really intimidating for instructors used to default course structures. You can lock this down, but our users enjoy the customizability - which causes issues providing for both values. Instructors have multiple ways to do tasks - and often there isn't a clear pathway.
- Lack of focus on core. Blackboard keeps releasing new products : Analytics (usage), Transact (purchase / card system), Ally (accessibility), Predict (early warning)... while the core experience lags behind. Blackboard is trying to sell the idea that their stuff works well with their stuff... while competitors keep improving the core system and make integrations easier. Personally, I believe Blackboard needs to refocus on the core competencies.
- Lack of communication / proactivity. Blackboard relied on an integration with Crocodoc for assignment markup. Crocodoc was purchased and shuttered by Box, who had a general press release a year out. Blackboard worked with Box to replace this functionality - but DID NOT DO A GOOD JOB. Communication on progress was non-existant, it required an unplanned restart, and there was a massive feature loss. We still experience some performance issues, and it's been over a year since the switch.
- Lack of migration pathway. There are distinct differences between self-hosted and cloud-hosted. The migration path from self hosted to cloud hosted is just as complex as migrating to another LMS. Blackboard has been really pushing cloud-hosted as a better experience, but many institutions of our size have had extreme difficulty migrating and some have ultimately switched to a competitor and had an easier time migrating. If you are considering going to the cloud, Blackboard SaaS will probably be as big of a change as a competitor.
- Poor Branding. Ultra is a ubiquitous term that Blackboard has settled on, but there are too many Ultras. Ultra was originally the branding for SaaS, a technology that was Vaporware for two years and then ultimately came out half-completed. Then they started offering Collaborate Ultra, Ultra Course View and Ultra Experience. I think there is even now an Ultra theme that is available for Learn Original. They need to find another word, because it's extremely confusing for administrators - let alone instructors.
February 07, 2019
Blackboard Learn, Taking Learning to the Future!
Blackboard Learn is used by multiple users, to access information, share information and access features across multiple devices and platforms. Users can access modules and other necessary information sources from any device, from anywhere, at their own convenience. It is perfect for organizations that have users who are global or not necessarily meeting at the same time in the same place, and need access to massive amounts of information that is stored in an organized format. It is quite useful for academic settings, but I can also see applicable uses for nonprofit or other environments.
- Organized modules
- Easy to use on various devices
- Easy to customize
- Chat feature could be improved
- Doesn't load quite as well on a mobile (phone) device consistently
- Better integration to a mobile app
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
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.
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.