University of Toronto 2008 Update

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University of Toronto’s contribution

Activities

Blackboard implementation V7.2 enterprise Stats

As of the end of the winter session:
  • 50,000 + users enrolled in active courses
  • 4,500 active courses
  • Large number of organizations
  • Five full time staff to centrally support faculty
  • Currently deliver three to five training sessions a week that are Blackboard focused - basic to advanced
  • Also deliver a large number of seminars, sessions, lunch and learns etc on various topics

Development My department implemented three new building blocks for Blackboard

  • A custom grouper version 3 – Highly complex tool that allows faculty to build custom groups based on baseline enrollments from the student information system. System allows for random assignment, self sign up, switching, start end dates, caps, batch enroll and other functions. Grouper is tied into the Gradebook by way of the:
  • Gradebook by groups tool – Gives TAs, coursebuilders etc access only to those groups they should have assess too
  • Add participants tool – Allows instructors and TAs to add student, TAs, coursebuilders etc who are not listed in the Student Information System
  • Also tested an externally developed new Blogger for Blackboard – To be implemented in a few weeks

Podcasting, Lecture Casting

  • Bravely (heroically one may say!) advocating for a free central streaming server for these tools. To be discussed further at the conference
  • Researched a number of systems for lecture cast. Also to be discussed further at the conference.
  • Ran a six person podcast pilot last year with the goal of teaching the staff in my department (and me) what we need to know about podcasting


Challenges

  • Moving users from an existing home grown LMS to Blackboard – lots of grumbling!
  • Huge university, decentralized to a fault. Duplication abounds, resources being wasted. Committees are formed to discuss how we can provide more common services – like streaming podcasts for all – but no one can seem to agree on formats, who pay and who supports the hardware.

o Campus wide initiatives that will benefit all very difficult to get off the ground (see above reasons) e.g. • No readily available meeting software tools like Adobe Connect for online meetings • No central place to store and stream videos • No coordinated videoconferencing facilities or initiatives • No readily available Wiki

Optimism

With the adoption of Blackboard, things do seems to be coming together though. Staff, faculty and governance bodies are seeing the value of commonly available campus wide teaching with technology systems. More coordination looms on the horizon!

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