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Incorporating Powerful Integrations Bb World
- 1. Meeting Quality Design Standards- Incorporating Powerful Integrationswith Blackboard Allison White, Associate Professor, Ohio University- Chillicothe David C. Dixon, Project Team Leader, Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College
- 2. About Ohio University Oldest University in Ohio (Northern Points of Appalachia) • Ohio University Main Campus established in 1804 - Athens, Ohio • Chillicothe Campus (1946) - Chillicothe, Ohio (5 regionals in Southeast Ohio) Over 39,000 Students Fall 2014 (~10,000 Regional) • ~2,300 at OU-C (primarily Non-Traditional; highest FTE among regionals) • 6 Master, 10 Bachelor, and 11 Associate Degrees at OU-C • 70 Office Technology Majors OU-C; 20 OUS 40 Full-Time Faculty at OU-Chillicothe Regional Campus (largest) • OTEC - 15 Faculty • 1 FT – Professor/Program Coordinator • 1 Retired PT ~10, 000 Courses Offered at OU Campuses During Fall • ~400 Traditional/Blended at OU-Chillicothe • ~70 Online at OU-C • ~300 Online University Wide through eCampus
- 3. About KCTCS (Southeast KYCTC is a member) • A Statewide System – KCTCS was created by the Kentucky Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997 (House Bill 1). – Our 16 colleges and on more than 70 campuses are deeply rooted in the educational history and tradition of Kentucky. • In Your Community – From Ashland to Paducah, from Covington to Bowling Green, and online, KCTCS colleges are strategically located to provide accessible education and workforce training that is relevant and responsive to the needs of Kentucky’s students, business and industry leaders, and the communities they serve. • Credentials – KCTCS offers certificates (some as short as 6 weeks) and diplomas as well as two- year associate degrees in 700 credit program offerings. – The most popular area of study is the baccalaureate transfer program, which allows a student to earn an associate degree at a KCTCS college and transfer to a four-year Kentucky institution.
- 4. Objectives Ohio UniversityPerspective □ Integration Requests and the Implementation Process □ Faculty Point of View; Experiences – SME role (AT) KCTCS Perspective □ Quality Matters/Online Learning Consortium Standards □ Integration Basics
- 6. Core featuresof Blackboard Learn (Bb): o Assignments o Assessments o Communication Tools: Discussions Announcements Blogs, Wikis, & Journals Additional integrations called Building Blocks or B2s for short: o Often acquired by Bb o Created and owned by companies having a relationship with Bb INTEGRATIONSOhio University
- 7. B2s OUhas installed: • McGraw Hill Create, Connect, Campus • Turnitin • Panopto • SafeAssign Popular! • VoiceThread • Learning Objects Campus Pack • WebAssign Popular! • Turning Point Clickers OU Office of Information Technology recommends: • Faculty allow 3 months to test and pilot a proposed new B2 • Faculty member must be willing to help test & promote new building blocks • Faculty are the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs); often take on a Business Analyst role INTEGRATIONSOhio University
- 8. Request/Review Step 5 –Building Block Installation into Bb Production - If no concerns during the testing, installed during a maintenance window Step 6 – B2 Support/ Communication - Once B2 is installed, OIT advertises the new functionality to all B2 Process Testing & FAQs Step 3 – Building Block Testing - If no concerns during the review/evaluation, B2 is installed & tested in the Blackboard test environment Step 4 – Faculty works with vendors to provide FAQ doc for help desk Installation/ Production Step 1 – Faculty member requests B2 via an online form Step 2 – Building Block Review/Evaluation - Multiple teams review B2 for concerns/issues; seek feedback from governance groups Ohio University
- 9. Building blocks provideadded functionality not available in the native Blackboard Learn – For example: • McGraw Hill & Pearson – Access content specific to those publishing companies (assignments, study guides, or exams) directly from Blackboard • Learning Objects Campus Pack - Provided blogs, wikis, podcasts and journals – Building Blocks before they became fully integrated within Blackboard Learn INTEGRATIONS Note: B2s removed from Bb if no supported version with our current Bb instance, B2 is causing technical issues in Bb, vendor not responsive/willing to work with OIT on issues, or annual review process determines B2 no longer needed / funding not available Ohio University
- 10. Current B2 requests: –Pearson – Wiley Plus – Top Hat – Macmillan Publishers – Class Climate Most FAQs/Tickets Includes: • Turnitin • Panopto INTEGRATIONS Campus Pack Journal (ePortfolio) Ohio University
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- 12. Meeting QM/OLCSoutheast KYCTC QM/OLC Standard KCTCS Evidence Learning Objectives (Competencies) • Aligned to an approved curriculum with set competencies • Competencies are broken down into approved modules Instructional materials and course syllabi are reviewed periodically to ensure they meet online course and program learning outcomes • Must go through the Quality Assurance Process at the System Level • Courses are revised a minimum of every three years
- 13. Meeting QM/OLCSoutheast KYCTC OLC Standard KCTCS Evidence The online course includes a syllabus outlining course objectives, learning outcomes, evaluation methods, books and supplies, technical and proctoring requirements, and other related course information, making course requirements transparent. • Each Learn-On-Demand Course includes a uniform syllabus • Outlines • Course Objectives • Outcomes • Grading • Any Needed Materials • Required Texts or Software
- 14. Integration to MeetStandards - SoftChalk • Great Companion Product for Blackboard Learning Management System • Blackboard Building Blocks partner • Enhances Blackboard (Learn and Angel) by providing tools for creating highly interactive content that can be easily integrated into and delivered through the Blackboard learning management and content systems.
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- 17. Meeting QM/OLCSoutheast KYCTC QM/OLC Standard KCTCS Evidence Course instructions articulate or link to an explanation of how the institution’s student services and resources can help learners succeed and how learners can obtain them. • Each Learn-On-Demand Course includes: • Online Tutoring Services • Online Retention System Students have access to effective academic, personal, and career counseling. • Each Learn-On-Demand Course includes an online integration tool for these services
- 18. Integration to MeetStandards - Starfish Retention Solutions • Student Support Tool to ensure student success Integrates seamlessly with Blackboard Learn • Provides single login access from Blackboard • Instructors can raise flags, kudos, to dos and referrals regarding student academic performance which are sent to the student’s email account and their success coach • Notifies of students progress • Allows for virtual appointments
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- 21. Meeting QM/OLCOhio University OLCStandard OU Evidence Faculty, staff, and students are supported in the development and use of new technologies and skills. OU OIT includes an Academic Technologies department that works with faculty (e.g. B2 implementation process) Course embedded technology actively supports the achievement of learning outcomes and delivery of course content, and superfluous use of technology is minimized. Using Campus Pack Journal as ePortfolios - Students: • Define and recall the application tools and features • Prepare for Microsoft Office Specialist practice exams and certification testing
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- 24. Thank you for coming! Pleasefeel free to contact us… David C. Dixon ddixon0009@kctcs.edu Allison White whitea3@ohio.edu
Editor's Notes
- #2 David opening Allison Intro-GA David Intro
- #3 David and I will begin with some background info about ourselves and our Institutions Associate Professor, Regional Program Coordinator, Office Administration A.A.B. (OTEC projected to be fully online by fall 2016 exciting - 7 years designing traditional and hybrid courses). Ohio University is the oldest university in Ohio 5 Regional campuses; OUC largest in terms of enrollments (39000 OU; 10,000 Regionals; 2300 OUC; and OTEC ~70 majors) 70 fully online courses OUC (although a majority of instructors ARE using Bb in some capacity) Follow the links on our uploaded presentation for additional information
- #4 David C. Dixon, MA Ed – EPIC Project Team Leader for Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College Bachelor of Arts in Education from Midway College Master of Arts in Education (Teaching and Learning) from Argosy University Master of Arts in Education (Library Science) from Eastern Kentucky University Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College offers over 50 programs at five campuses encompassing much of southeastern Kentucky. With an enrollment of over 5000. Our academic transfer programs offer Associate of Arts and Associate of Science Degrees that transfer very easily to four-year institutions. We have certificate programs that fit together with your current employment so you can advance or open the door to a new career.
- #5 We have be gathering Integration information from our IT and other departments; and using our own experiences as instructors, course designers, and users of Bb to put this information together from a faculty point of view. We want to share our institution’s best practices in the hope that you will take away ideas for your own. We also hope that through your questions and our discussion at the end we will glean ideas from you as well. We will pause between our sections to clarify any points for you and take questions during the discussion at the end Show of hands – how many faculty do we have? IT? Work together to keep communication lines open; student success being our goal Slide
- #6 Beginning with using Blackboard at OU Chillicothe campus (est. in 1946 in response to the G.I. Bill after WW2) Pictured above is Bennett Hall (opened in 1966) where I (Allison) am primarily located (my labs)
- #7 It’s easy to look at the three main features of Bb and see how Additional tools like: WebAssign, Panopto, and Campus Pack Journal can work within Bb to achieve course learning outcomes and goals. These Building Blocks or B2s (Owned by outside companies who build a relationship with LMSystems like Bb) I have personally worked with our IT and AT departments to obtain a lecture capture tool needed by a large number of our faculty and requested as early as 2012. Requirements were written, vendors were solicited, and demos were given to our project team. Ultimately, Panopto was chosen, implemented, tested, and moved to Bb production. Faculty can now capture and embed lectures seamlessly into their courses.
- #8 Look at B2s OU has installed (Publisher tool connections like McGraw Hill; SafeAssign Popular as is WebAssign) These are tools used directly by students and/or faculty and integrated into our version of Blackboard Learn (approximately 2 times per year). Our IT recommend allowing at least 3 months to test and pilot a proposed B2 Faculty requesting B2s should be willing to help with testing and promoting new B2s (not just used one person) Often faculty are the SMEs in the use of the tools they have requested; can take on Business Analyst role I’m a certified Business Analyst previously working for a large utility; enjoy this process as I have time Academic Technologies Department assists us Additional Integration tools used to design courses in Blackboard will be discussed by David.
- #9 OU follows Six basic steps complete what is commonly referred to in the project world as the Project Life Cycle with varying elements of: requesting, planning, designing, developing, testing, and closing (always reviewing production quality). I have Combined these into 3 categories - Request/Review proposals, Testing & Creating FAQs, and Installing into Production Step 1 Faculty complete online request form Step 2 B2 is reviewed and evaluated by teams to give voice to concerns and receive feedback from others Step 3 is testing (vendors, AT, IT, and faculty create questions and scenarios used in our testing environment) Step 4 Faculty work with the vendor to create FAQs that our Helpdesk personnel will use Step 5 B2 goes to production! During a regularly scheduled maintenance window (2 times per year) Step 6 B2 is promoted and supported to ensure continued use
- #10 Important to NOTE: B2s will be removed if not used by faculty or if causing technical issues not supported by the vendor You can see how the native version of Bb can be uniquely shaped to meet the varying needs of every institution and its faculty with links to publisher sites and tools like Campus Pack Journal (demo later). So, These Building blocks that add functionality to an LMS are examples of INTEGRATIONS. YOU may know that Some of the commonly requested tools have been historically acquired by Bb (or contractual agreements are made) so these can become part of the new Bb native version. Other examples include tools (GUIs) used and often developed by university IT aid faculty members in designing their course sites. The goals for this type of integration are mainly to create a common course template for ease of use by students. David will be showing examples of those.
- #11 Current B2 requests at OU Hyperlinks connect to explanations for these tools if you want to explore our uploaded presentation later Look familiar? The Pearson B2 request just recently became available in production this spring (I have a picture of that coming up) Turnitin and the ‘new to us’ Panopto generate the majority of our current Helpdesk calls and tickets Back to David
- #12 Students, staff, and faculty members at SKCTC from all five campuses. SKCTCS is located in southeastern Kentucky with five campus located across three counties serving students from four counties and two neighboring states. The very first time you set foot on any of our eye-catching, full-service campuses—located conveniently at Cumberland, Harlan, Pineville, Middlesboro and Whitesburg—you’ll discover the Southeast difference. I am located on the Cumberland Campus which is Southeast’s original campus that opened in 1960.
- #13 It is important that your courses meet the QM and OLC standards, in order to ensure students receive a successful learning experience. By using the standards, faculty, course developers, and instructional designers are given a “checklist” of what a successful course should include. I will be overviewing a few sample standards and how Southeast and KCTCS meets these standards using the Blackboard Learn LMS and Integrations; thus making the experience a better one for all stakeholders. Go over each standard and the evidence we use to meet the standard
- #14 One of the main components of any course, is the course syllabus. By providing course developers and a instructors with a uniform syllabus, students are able to easily navigate through the syllabus to find information needed to successful complete the course, find information on needed supplies, how to get help and so on. By using an integration tool, the creation process can be a breeze and student navigation can be enhanced.
- #15 Highlights of the SoftChalk Software Integration Solution
- #16 Within SoftChalk, you can send the syllabus directly to Blackboard, save on your Blackboard Drive, or save to your computer and upload directly to Blackboard. By using this tool, instructors and instructional designers are able to easily manage the course syllabus through this powerful integration of the SoftChalk product.
- #17 SoftChalk is completely web-based. This allows the student to not have to have any additional software such as Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Word to read it. This also allows the syllabus to opens easily from right inside Blackboard and can be printed easily with the print all feature. By using a uniform syllabus through the entire KCTCS Learn-On-Demand System, this ensures that the OLC standards of including a very detailed syllabus is met, thus ensuring students are succeeding. Not only is SoftChalk an excellent tool to use for the creation of the syllabus; many other interactive activities and lessons can be created using this product and load to
- #18 Students are expected to have access to certain counseling services as a student whether it be academic, career, or personal. Students are also expected to have services and resources available to them to ensure student success so why not integrate this into Blackboard for a successful course. We do this by using Brainfuse for Tutoring Services and Starfish for Retention. Go over each standard and the evidence we use to meet the standard
- #19 This system also allows for a communication piece to provide information to students, success coaches/advisors, and faculty to ensure that you have all the resources needed to be successful. Through this portal, students have the opportunity to schedule virtual appointments with anyone in their success network (faculty, success coaches or advisors). These appointments are based on the faculty or advisors availability and the appointment links are integrated to sync with your KCTCS Outlook calendar. Key features include: Personal, searchable success network Online scheduling for individual and group appointments Two-way integration with Outlook and other online calendars Central student folder with notes, photos, and attributes Shared notes Kiosks Student plan tracking Dynamic outcomes reporting - See more at: http://www.starfishsolutions.com/student-success-solutions/starfish-enterprise-success-platform/starfish-connect/#sthash.WX0FIIi0.dpuf
- #20 Starfish provides a simple and efficient way for people on campus to schedule time with one another; whether that time is face-to-face, over the phone, or even online. This reiterates the OLC standard of students having to access to effective academic, personal, and career counseling. The screen shot provides an overview of the student dashboard with Starfish.
- #21 Students from the OTEC Office Administration A.A.B. program at OU Let’s Transition back to OU with two examples of how the integration process and a specific building block integration meets OLC standards
- #22 It’s important to mention that we have faculty following standards from QM, OLC, and self designed (by departments) 1st OLC Faculty Support Standard The OU Academic Technologies group works with faculty to implement new technologies, meeting this OLC standard. At OUC we have a Technology Rich Learning Community of faculty that support online designing Next this OLC Standard envolves embedding technologies in our LMS to support learning outcomes without being flashy, complicated, or superfluous OTEC utilizes Campus Pack Journal as an ePortfolio to meet one or more learning outcomes from five program courses. I have an example of that…..
- #23 Campus Pack Journal used as an ePortfolio embedded into Bb Students remain in Bb (look left) while creating portfolios of their work reinforce learning future use by the student for career planning and interviewing This tool allows for exporting to a zip file at the end of the course with working hyperlinks (created by the student) You can Open the link with Sheila’s name to see all of her portfolio But this is an opening statement she wrote
- #24 Here is the Newly released Pearson product integrated into Bb Allows students to work seamlessly with Bb and their online text tools. This was requested by several faculty members using Pearson products for a variety of courses including Sociology, Math, and Engineering. Since this is a link to a hefty publisher site, testing involved linking assignments AND transitioning grades from the tool into the Bb grade center. Since we had so many requests, it was decided that requests for publishing company content be a priority. Provided OIT doesn’t run into any issues, Cengage and Wiley Plus will be installed in Bb before Fall Semester begins. The next building block in line is MacMillan; projected for release before spring semester (again providing everything goes well with the testing.) When finished with the publishing company requests, OIT will evaluate and test the additional requests. OIT is planning to send an email to faculty before the start of this fall term, to update them on the new B2s that have been installed.
- #25 That’s a wrap! Do you have any questions? Would you like to share your roles and current projects (IT, Bb support, faculty??)