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One Year Later Jake Gannon The University of Liverpool

One Year Later Jake Gannon The University of Liverpool. Overview. Look at Blackboard from 3 points of view Students Staff Computing Services Department. History. Previous WEBCT pilot Decided on big bang start All Modules All Staff All Students Now beginning our second year. Students.

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One Year Later Jake Gannon The University of Liverpool

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  1. One Year LaterJake GannonThe University of Liverpool

  2. Overview • Look at Blackboard from 3 points of view • Students • Staff • Computing Services Department

  3. History • Previous WEBCT pilot • Decided on big bang start • All Modules • All Staff • All Students • Now beginning our second year

  4. Students • Proved popular • FEBRUARY 2004 • Active modules 3426 • Registered users 33933 • Active users 9281 • Page views 1856320 • Course page views 638782 • Login success / sessions 1779389 • Login failed 114110 • Apache hits 6331084

  5. Students • Round the clock usages • 25K hits on Christmas Day • Quick to complain if system was down • Blamed Computing Services for lack of content

  6. Students • Why did they like it so much? • Used to web applications • CSD had previously provided web based applications • 24 Hour access • Material available without the need to print out • Can catch up if missed lectures • Fast and reliable • Apparent seamless integration into Student System

  7. Students • Why did they like it so much? • The software itself • Easy to use • Intuitive • Responsive • Specific Functionality • Discussion Board • Electronic Drop Box • Online assessment

  8. Students • Does it discriminate against non computer savvy? • Certain subjects given advantage? • Access issues • Accessibility issues

  9. Staff • Some keen some not so • Concerns • Make them redundant • Not using it seen as a black mark? • Some material may not be 100% their own • Student pressure to make use of it

  10. Staff • Quick to find problems • Quick to request new features / functionality • Departmental Modules for all their students • Wanted super user accounts • Wanted all staff to see all modules • Wanted improved assessments

  11. Staff • Wanted better stats, which staff using it • Wanted auditing • Content deleted but no one owned up • One case of malicious deletion

  12. Staff • Did NOT want quotas (disk usage currently 40GB) • Wanted to record lectures and host them on BB • We recommended windows Media encoder to reduce size • Too many modules in module list • No sort (We added space to the front of the title) • Matching titles (We added year code to title name) • Example1Example 2Example 3

  13. Staff • Worried about plagarism • We offer Copycatch on the desktop • Looking at plug-in for Blackboard • Requested reusable content • One document to many courses • One announcement to many courses • One survey to many courses

  14. Staff • Overall after one year staff positive • Students attending lectures better prepared • Quantity and quality of questions increased • Staff receiving good feedback from students

  15. Staff “I can honestly say for myself that in the eight year I have been an academic this is the most useful teaching aid to which I have had access”

  16. Staff • Departmental Committees set up • Staff employed to maintain departmental presence • Self appointed departmental Champions • Research grants secured • Sharing good practice (bug mailing list)

  17. Technical • Single Dell Power Edge server • 4 GB Ram • 4 x 1.5 Xeon with Hyper threading • Mirrored hotswapable disk • 76 GB for DB and Blackboard

  18. Technical • Single server for Database and Application • Redhat Advanced Server • Oracle 8i • Blackboard 6.2.3.6-sp1 build 1

  19. Technical • Lots of Redhat patches • Lots of Firmware patches • Running on old Kernel • Lots of software patches • list of patches

  20. Technical • Patches cause problems • Need to be tested • Downtime • Will it come back up • Undocumented changes • Reset SSL certificates • Reset Tuning • Reset login page • Old Login pageNew Login Page

  21. Technical • Redundancy / Recovery Strategy • Database shutdown and backed up every night • Blackboard shutdown and file system backed up every night • Export all changed modules • Code for changed modules • Example results cd /usr/local/blackboard/apps/content-exchange/bin/ ./batch_ImportExport.sh -f file -l 1 -t export

  22. Technical • Tuning • Little tuning needed • bb-config.properties • bbconfig.appserver.minthreads=100 • bbconfig.appserver.maxthreads=400 • bbconfig.database.bb_60.db.maxpoolsize=100 • Only one performance problem • Unrealistic defaults

  23. Technical • Integration using Snapshot • Data dumped from SIS every 24 hours • Snapshot run every morning • Fake students, courses etc appended to the end of feeds • If not in feed then record disabled • Example Snapshot feeds • Snapshot results

  24. Technical • Integration causes some confusion • Not real-time • Only registered students transferred • In future transfer all students regardless of status

  25. Technical • Lots of extra information required • Log rotate which emails apache hits • total number of page views • total number of logins • total number of login failures • total number of staff users, per department.

  26. Technical • Lots of extra information required • READONLY user account on the Blackboard Oracle database • determine a students grades for a specific module (even if student is no longer on the module). • determine all objects which a user has placed into the digital drop box across all modules. • Transfer grades from BB back to SIS (demo)

  27. Technical • Scripts are available from http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/csd/blackboard/scripts/

  28. Technical • Future • Memory Upgrade • Disk Upgrade • Load Balancing • Oracle clustering • Wireless access

  29. Technical • Future • When do we start removing courses • Snapshot integration • Streaming Audio • Video Conferencing • 3rd party Add-ons • Content Management System • Integration with other systems. Portal, student systems, personnel etc • Building Blocks

  30. Mailing List • BB ADMIN mailing list hosted by Arizona University http://lists.asu.edu/archives/bbadmin-l.html • Better than BB support 

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