Speaker
Adam Voyton
Wilmington University

Once you get the license, what do you do with it?  Customize interface to engage students and faculty across your institution.

Customization:

  • Create tabs, sub-tabs, and modules
  • each tab, sub-tab can be configured to appear to users that are assigned to a particular role
  • A module is bascialy a box that can contain: text, video etc..

Primary Roles are Students, faculty, staff.

For tabs or modules that have information relevant to students and or faculty in certain department, we set up college-specific institutional roles.

Student/faculty login has generic content and customized content.  Advertising, Marketing, Student Life

Students: Top layer tab has student services tab – links to student service pages, Jobs for Kats as Top Layer Tab
Faculty: (Faculty services tab – centralizes info that was scattered across website)  My media module (Kaltura)

Subtabs – Tech Support/Resources (support desk hours) (clean up My courses video), Kaltura subtab, My media and faculty repository on it along with self-help for Kaltura.  Blackboard Collaborate  subtab(embed the webpage), Blackboard subtab for IM.

Wilmington uses colleges on Top lvl tabs that contain info that they may want behind a login.  Each of these tabs have subtabs with more info   (question, how do you envision having 6 tabs one for each college).  Tabs to other systems

Things to Keep in mind:

*Tabs don’t open up in new browser tab.
*when embedding content use HTTPS*Have rules and policies for what content can go where (Governance)
*Set up a calendar to manage/schedule the content
*keep MY Courses at top right and announcements at top center

Blackboard Organizations

Bulk of orgs are Academic in nature, a fair amount of student orgs, smaller honor societies and departments.

Come up with and keep up with a naming convention.

Implementing Communities  (Organizations Subtab with “My Organizations” module)  Contains video explaining what orgs are and how they work. Including support documentation.  (Have an org catalog), link to a request form.

3 ways to enroll users into orgs: 

  • Self Enrollment – No level of privacy
  • Manual Enrollment – Leader has complete control, but has to do it all themselves.
  • Automatically adding someone who meets a certain criteria (SIS Based), some people may not want to be enrolled. (come up with un-enrollment process – place a default link in orgs with instructions to e-mail leader etc..) come up with code of conduct link for orgs as well.

Tips to Increase Students Use of Organizations (Require leaders to go to training)

– Make registration process simple
– Put out a press release on ORGS (get the word out)
– Videotaping campus events or use collaborate
– have student representatives talk for them

Online Student Association – Blackboard Org  (Engaging Online Students) – automatically add every student taking an online course.

  • Discussion board of the month – “What can we do to engage our online students at homecoming?”  small giftcard or prize of randomly selected participant
  • Online Student of the Semester – (we can use our ads)  Short little bios, students can apply we can focus on them.
  • Introductions Discussion Board (Networking)
  • Have video and webpage about this organization

Remind your constituencies what Blackboard Communities does for them. Press Releases, videos etc…  Target program chairs about Bb Orgs.

Lessons Learned:

– Get Departmental Involvement
– Dedicate a staff member to serve as community admin- Audit content every year
– People that do not have a Bb Login will not be able to access any content in Orgs

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