How did we ever survive without the Blackboard Content System?

1. Buckinghamshire Chilterns UNIVERSITY COLLEGE How did we ever survive without the Blackboard Content System? Dr Helen Fletcher Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College & Narayan Prasad Blackboard Global Services

2. Outline of this presentation • Examples of issues concerning BCUC • Working with the Blackboard Global Services Team on the planning for, and implementation of, the Blackboard Content System • Examples of how we are addressing issues at BCUC using the Blackboard Content System

3. Issues concerning BCUC • Students need to hold a record of their Personal Development Plans • Paper, MS Word • Faculty staff need to publish their research profiles • HTML, Faculty webmaster, • A module may be taught by several lecturers • Difficult with Bb LS 5.5 • A module might be used by students at BCUC and at our Strategic Partner FE Colleges • Difficult with Bb LS 5.5

4. More issues concerning BCUC • Keeping track of digital copies is becoming difficult • Multiple unconnected records? • Searching for anything is difficult • Re-inventing cataloguing? • Difficult to ensure everyone is working to the same version of a document during the course validation process • Multiple paper and MS Word versions? • Need to ensure the approved course documents are available on the Web • MS Word to HTML then Webmaster?

5. Rapid Planning & Implementation of Content System Objective • Satisfy BCUC’s vision to manage enterprise content using the Blackboard Content System Blackboard Activities Through systematic and structured discussions, the fundamental concepts of unified content strategy were examined: • Getting a better understanding of BCUC’s content lifecycle – various phases of content development such as creation, review, management and delivery • Analysing the content lifecycle to identify the players (content producers, reviewers and consumers) and issues

6. Rapid Planning & Implementation of Content System (Cont.) • Performing a substantive audit of BCUC’s content and determining the business requirements to understand the organisation’s goals and needs • Comprehensively reviewing BCUC’s use-cases to perform an in-depth analysis • Deriving directory structures and content authorization to identify access rights for all the content based on identified roles for all players • Designing appropriate metadata to enable proper processing and searching of content elements. Outcomes • A full implementation of the content system complete with directory structures and permissions model appropriate for the BCUC environment

7. Deliverable – Project Implementation Plan • Project Implementation Plan • BCUC Background • Content management vision • Tasks & Milestones • Resources and hardware capacity planning • Operations – policies and procedures

8. Deliverable – Content Planning & Implementation • Methodology & Approach • Review of all use-cases • Modeling and analysis • Producers, reviewers and consumers • Products • Permissions • Directory Structures • Metadata analysis and design • Mapping to Blackboard Learning, Portal and Content System functionalities

9. Personal Development Planning (PDP) • Students need a record of their personal development plans for • job hunt • lifelong learning • E-portfolio in PDP • Simple to write to, with Academic Tutors • Passes used as references for employers or universities • Alumni take it away as a web page

10. Staff Profiles • Faculty staff need to publish their research interests on the web • This is too hard with our ‘normal’ web • E-portfolio can be used and easily publish direct to the web

11. Sharing Content • A module might be taught jointly by several lecturers • A module might be taught across our Strategic Alliance • This collaboration was hard work with Bb LS 5.5 • The Content System allows easy sharing from a ‘tray’ of files

12. Management of the e-library • The ‘library’ is responsible for the legitimate copying of digital materials • This is easily managed with e-Reserves • Use of Dublin Core metadata ensures easy access to learning objects later

13. Course Validation Process • Ownership of course development documents by the faculty during development • Ownership of the formal documents by the institution (Academic Registry) once validated • Simple publication of necessary documents (eg programme specifications) on the web for FOIA and TQI

14. Organisations • One for each faculty and department to share local documents • Design, Technology, Health, etc • Learning and Information Services, Academic Registry, etc • One for each committee or working party to share formal documents across BCUC • Senate, Academic Audit Committee, etc • Information Strategy Steering Group, Technical Working Party, etc

15. Plans • Two faculty champions initially using CS with LS • LIS to use the Content System for departmental procedures, etc • Information Strategy Steering Group and Technical Working Party to use for papers for meetings • E-portfolio to be used with academic tutors through SCPE for PDP

16. Issues • Network files versus Bb CS files • Traditional website versus Bb CS • Training requires careful planning • Learning system is easy to use for all • Content System is more difficult • Policies and procedures to be agreed