Item: Blackboard Learn by Anthology
Rating: 6
Author: Charlotte Lashomb

Overall Satisfaction with Blackboard

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Blackboard is used on our campus as the online course delivery and management system. It is also used by instructors not teaching online as a repository for notes and quizzes and as a way to communicate assignments due to class cancellations or school closure. Since this community college is located in a largely rural area with major universities some distance away, Blackboard provides the opportunity for students to continue their education while working full-time. It also allows instructors to be more creative with their course content and bring visual content into their assignments that students can do asynchronously.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Customizable
Easier to Navigate
More streamlined

Cons

Unable to use certain web browsers, for example, IE.
Unable to print from certain browsers
Students have problems uploading documents or creating a thread

Return on Investment

Increased course enrollments
Faculty development

Alternatives Considered

The previous CMS used before Blackboard was Lotus Notes. Between the two, Blackboard is much more intuitive, easier to use, and more navigable. Lotus Notes was very cumbersome to use because you had to scroll through every users comments to find the last one. There was no choice to collapse or expand the threads.