Hi Marcy!
Here at U of C I've been closely involved with the folks who are taking
care of the campus-wide support of Blackboard technology (Bb for
short). It's not required (yet) but is encouraged, and this year the
number of courses using it doubled or tripled.
Here no one has said "thou shalt not use any other system"... for
instance, you can still use another system supported by your textbook
publisher -- Pearson has their own Bb server, for example (called
"Course Compass"), free for those who adopt their textbooks; I think
Thomson Nelson has something like "Web Tutor." When I was a grad
student at Ohio State the University only supported WebCT, but I went
with a Longman text and enjoyed using CourseCompass, which is based on
Bb technology.
Now I am finding that many of my students are taking 2-3 courses at a
time that use Blackboard on our university server, and having them
access all courses through the same portal is convenient for them. In a
couple of years I predict it will be like email to the students, and I
won't have to give "blackboard orientations" in the first week of class
anymore.
In Bb the system administrators have access to all the courses currently
running on their server. I think you can change a setting to allow or
disallow "guests" from access, and there's only limited areas that
guests can access.
Our FOIP (Alberta's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy
Act) policy governs the use of student work, and our research ethics
board wants us to get signed consent forms like Russ said, to be
received by the prof after the course ends, along with student
evaluations.
Our university switched from WebCT to Blackboard in summer 03, and
Blackboard is the better system overall; fewer students complain about
usability than they did with WebCT. Bb has its quirks and limitations,
of course.
Content management in Bb (archiving courses, copying courses) for me is
not an issue. Since I teach 3 courses at a time using Bb, I choose to
put all my content files in password-protected areas of my own website
where I can copy and edit the files more easily, and I link those
website areas to each Blackboard shell so my students can view them from
within Blackboard if they want. This way, if the same file is accessed
by 3 courses (3 separate Bb shells), such as my evaluation guidelines, I
only have to edit the file once.
--
Prof. Tania S. Smith
Faculty of Communication & Culture
University of Calgary
2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
403-220-7774 www.ucalgary.ca/~smit
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