This document outlines the migration process from ANGEL to Blackboard Learn at Niagara County Community College and Buffalo State College. It describes setting up a migration team and timeline, training administrators and faculty in phases, communicating the changes to students and faculty, and migrating course content between systems. Lessons learned and resources developed included guidance documents, training videos, and maintaining communication throughout the transition.

1. Migrating from ANGEL to
Blackboard Learn
Dan Feinberg & Diane Hamilton
System Administration
Lisa Dubuc & Donna Simiele
Niagara County Community College
Ellen Sidey
Buffalo State College
SUNY CIT 2014

2. Agenda
• Migration Process Overview
• System Set Up
• Resources
• Training
• Communication Plans
• Lessons Learned
• Q&A

3. Open SUNY:
System Admin Team
Dan Feinberg & Diane Hamilton

4. Migration Timeline
Month 1: Regular meetings begin
Month 2: Train-the-trainer
Month 3: GUI Admin training, Tier 1&2 installed
Month 4: Migration training w/ first cohort
Month 7: Migration training w/ second cohort
Month 10: Additional migration training?

6. varied formats
resources to use
and
source documents

7. recordings to use
and
source files

8. self-paced courses
available for download

11. Comprehensive
introductory video
and
companion script

16. Tour of Migration Resources
•ANGEL to Blackboard Learn Migration Guide
•Webinar Archives and Source Materials
•Self-Paced Training Courses
o Starter Tutorial Videos
o Resource Repositories
•Face-to-Face Training Outlines
•GUI Admin Materials
System Admin, Dan Feinberg & Diane Hamilton

17. Niagara County Community College
Lisa Dubuc & Donna Simiele

18. Migration Team/Timeline
• Migration Team Set-up
• Timeframe (SP13-SP14)
• Weekly Meetings

19. System Set Up
• Detailed Review of System Settings
• Some of the Setting We Choose
– Turn off “Bulk Delete” in Packages and Utilities for
faculty role.
– Created Roles:
• Librarian
• Leaders in Organizations
– Turned on Content Collection
Niagara County Community College, Lisa Dubuc & Donna Simiele

20. System Set Up (Cont.)
• Redesign of Blackboard Login page
• Created a default course menu
• Researched Building Blocks
• Installed for Phase I
– Pearson My Labs
– McGraw Hill Campus
• Later Phases
– Cengage Learning Mind Links
– Turnitin
– Magna Commons
Niagara County Community College, Lisa Dubuc & Donna Simiele

21. Communication Plan
• NCCC Administration
• NCCC Office of Information Technology
• Ran Migration Overview sessions – explain why, when, who
• Faculty group in Angel (All Faculty), system message
• Faculty - Built Teams (A, B, C)
– Encouraged “Course Refresh” at this time
– Making Content ADA Compliant
• Students (student groups in ANGEL, T-Wolves, Digital Displays)
• ANGEL End of Life

22. Faculty Training & Timeline
Started Admin Training in May 2014
– Included: eLearning and OIT
Divided into 3 Groups:
• Phase I (Summer 2013 training/Fall 2013 Delivered)
– Hand Selected
• Online faculty
• Tech savvy
• Phase II (Fall 2013 training/Spring 2014 Delivered)
– Opened to Volunteers
(1 of 2 Slides)

23. Faculty Training & Timeline (Cont.)
• Final Phase (Spring-Summer 2014
training/Summer Fall 2014 Delivered)
– This provided us with a longer period of time to
train faculty and student
• Final Phase Breakdown
• Final Phase Timeline Image

24. Content Migration
• Phase I & II– Created a Google Document for Faculty to list
courses to be migrated
– OIT built a flat file to migrate the contents
• Phase III – Loaded all Summer/Fall shells in ANGEL &
Blackboard
– Faculty loaded all content into ANGEL shells they wanted
migrated
• Time given for cleanup & Encouraged “Course Refresh”
– All ANGEL Summer/Fall content was migrated at one specified
time
 Pushed a course announcement & closed all unnecessary
tabs in all courses running in Blackboard. (All 3 Phases) Flat
File Created to support this.

25. Training Modes
• Face-to-face
• Online Self Paced
• Webinars
• Open Sessions*
• Recordings
(collection of Bb videos, self produced, YouTube, etc.)
• Screen Casts
• NCCC eLearning Blog

26. Resources
• Open SUNY Migration (Harry’s) Team
– SUNY Migration Confluence
• Open SUNY Training Team (Dan & Erin)
• eLearning Blog
• Course Sites
• Blackboard on Demand
• Blackboard YouTube Channel
Niagara County Community College, Lisa Dubuc & Donna Simiele

27. NCCCeLearning.com

28. Buffalo State College
Ellen Sidey

29. Campus Communication
• Blackboard Migration website
• ANGEL announcements
• Campus emails to faculty and
students
• Online daily news bulletin
• Flyers, posters, and electronic
signage
• Present at campus events and
departmental meetings
• Reached out to student service
offices

30. Campus Communication Example

31. Content Migration
• Migrated only relevant and current course
content
• Users responsible for saving certain
items (e.g. student data, emails, LOR
content)
• Developed request forms for courses and
groups (organizations)
• Established deadlines

32. Content Migration
• Developed a procedure to create
spreadsheets for SLN and ITEC
to batch content
• Created procedures to
communicate information to the
faculty about migration
procedures

33. Content Migration
• Created separate Blackboard
course sites to house ANGEL
content-faculty could then view
their content in the Bb
environment and reference it
during training

34. Migration Document Example

35. Training
• Fundamental part of migration
plan
• Provided a variety of workshops
in addition to SLN Educational
Services
• Needed to adapt to the diverse
levels of expertise and interest

36. Training
• Stressed the importance of
conducting a quality check of
migrated course content
• Encouraged faculty to use
Blackboard features instead of
trying to retrofit migrated ANGEL
content within the new advanced
Blackboard environment

37. Training Session List

38. Buffalo State Resource Examples for
Students and Faculty
http://www.buffalostate.edu/offices/ir/blackb
oard.html
Buffalo State Blackboard home page

39. Lessons Learned & Tips
See Handout

40. Questions?

41. Contact Information:
• Lisa Dubuc dubuc@niagaracc.suny.edu
• Donna Simiele dsimiele@niagaracc.suny.edu
• Dan Feinberg dan.feinberg@suny.edu
• Diane Hamilton diane.hamilton@suny.edu
• Ellen Sidey sideyep@buffalostate.edu