With the increase in blended and online course delivery there are ongoing challenges for supporting staff and students in the use of teaching technologies. This presentation will look at the University of Newcastle's implementation of a third-party building block for Blackboard which provides access to: data to measure tool adoption; tools to promote technologies within Blackboard courses; and support tools designed to improve end-user experiences. 'Eesysoft' provides simple, just-in-time reporting tools that are being used by Instructional Designers to develop targeted workshops and consultations for academic staff within Schools and Faculties where it has been identified that adoption could be improved. When new technologies are introduced, Eesysoft's communication tools are being used to promote features from within the online course environment. Staff and students now have access to resources that are specific to the location within the Blackboard course that they are accessing. It is hoped that Eesysoft will provide the necessary tools and data to influence change in the way academic staff adopt Blackboard tools for blended and online courses.

1. Making Adoption Eesy
EesySoft Implementation at the University of
Newcastle
Tammy Robinson
Manager, Virtual Learning Environment
University of Newcastle

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Tammy Robinson
Manager, Virtual Learning Environment
tammy.robinson@newcastle.edu.au
&
Mieke Post
Business Development Manager
Mieke.post@eesysoft.com

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The University of Newcastle
37,181 student enrolments
1,068 academic staff
1,573 professional staff
Across 6 campuses

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UONline Support (within the Centre for Teaching and Learning)
• Direct phone support
(primarily academics)
• Direct email support
• Live Chat
• Via UON Service
Management System
(primarily students)
• Individual Consultations
• School/Discipline
presentations
• Face to face workshops
• Online information
sessions
• Self-help resources

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Our Support for Blackboard…

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Time taken on support calls…

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The majority of support calls are Blackboard-specific…

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What data do we (UONline Support Team) have available and how
do we use it?
• Accessing individual Bb sites
• Blackboard Course Reports
• Retention Centre
• Grade Centre
• Strategy, Planning & Performance team access Blackboard Open Database for
course ‘last access’.
• Workshop/information session/consultation attendance

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What data is missing? What are we interested in knowing about?
• Technology Usage (= Adoption)
– Academics aren’t sure what tools they can/should use.
– What workshops/information sessions should we run? Need to approach executives with ‘big
picture’ information.
– Data on pre-identified ‘At risk’ courses
• Power Users
– Adoption can be ‘encouraged/demonstrated’ by peers
• How many people are using our self-help resources.
– Are our current resources useful?

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Why Eesysoft?…
• Implementation of Analytics for Learn in 2011
• We didn’t quite get there…
• Invite from Griffith University to look at their implementation of Eesysoft
• Implementation of Building block on 6th March 2017 to trial:
• EesyMessaging
• EesyReports
• EesySupport
• License purchase provided ongoing access to data ‘Reports’ (from March).
• Immediately utilised ‘Messaging’.
• ‘Support’ turned on early July.

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4
9
18
13
19
9
6
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Break
Week 3
Break
Week 4
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Number of Eesysoft Enquiries
13
65
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Staff Student
Number of Eesysoft Enquiries
Data from Go-Live (13th July 2017) until 25/08/17

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Eesysoft Messaging
Proactive Messages
• Advise users of new/changed functionality
• (Hopefully) Reduce Support Calls
By:
• ‘Hints’
• System Tray messages
• Pop-Up Alerts

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Examples of use : EesyMessaging (Pop-up Alert)

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EesyMessaging : Page-related help/hints (System Tray)
This item added following enquiry from academic about how to advise his students to access Collaborate recordings.
Positive feedback from academic regarding the timeliness of being able to add the message

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EesyMessaging: Notification of Known Issues / workarounds (Hint)
This item added following a number of reports of issue received after an update

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Eesysoft Support
• Context-sensitive role-related help
• Additional options to contact the support
team from within the UONline environment
• User information and computer/browser
details captured
By
• Blackboard’s help resources
• html
• Web links (eg. Vendor resources)
• Video
• pdf

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EesySupport
Support Centre - Configurable

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EesySupport
We needed to show people that we are only available during business hours.

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EesySupport

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Eesysoft Producer
Desktop application to configure Eesysoft
• Add messaging (hints/system trays & popups)
• Add UON-specific resources e.g. To third-
party systems
• Remove Blackboard resources not related to
UON
• Configure the customisation of the support
page

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EesyReports: Producer
Customised for UON
and implemented as
part of the trial.

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EesyReports: Producer
Configurable. Easy to ‘hide’ Blackboard
Help content that is not applicable to
UON

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EesyReports: Producer
Easily map Bb Course Roles (including Custom
Roles) to the Eesysoft roles.
i.e. Who do you want included in reports?

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Eesysoft Reports
• Monitor Course Activity
• Track System Usage
• Create custom monitors
• Create campaigns
• Measure the adoption of UONline tools (in
Blackboard sites)

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EesyReports: Examples of use (Tool adoption report)
‘What if’ scenario:
A student appeals an
assessment task with the
suggestion that it did not
appear in the ‘to-do’ module.
Eesysoft Report indicates that
‘0’ students or staff access the
Notification dashboard.
Informed decision to remove
the notification dashboard
and Bb Home page from the
default course menu.

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EesyReports
EesySoft reporting data transferred to reporting
templates for discussion with Heads of Schools re.
staff development opportunities for Bb tool usage.
People who ARE using tools can be invited to
participate in School-based workshops to discuss
use-cases (super-users).
Workshop Associated Tool(s) School ‘A’
Hands-on : Introduction to Collaborate Ultra
Provides basic introduction to the features of
Collaborate Ultra, including video/audio chat,
interactive whiteboard; slideshow and screen sharing;
polling and breakout groups.
Online Session.
Bb Collaborate Ultra 27/165
FOCUS: What Blackboard role should I assign my
teaching staff?
Explanation of all BB course roles and how to add and
modify staff using OCM.
FOCUS: How can I get the most out of the Student
Preview tool in my Blackboard course?
How and why to use the Student Preview Tool and
specific examples of what it can be used for. Also, use
of Edit Mode and comparing the two.
Student Preview 157/165
FOCUS: What options are available in Blackboard to
monitor student progress and performance?
How both the Performance Dashboard and Retention
Centre can be used to track students’ progress and
keep them engaged. Also the use of Review Status and
its relationship with the monitoring tools.
Performance Dashboard
Review Status
Retention Centre
--
Email
21/165
1/165
14/165
--
103/165
FOCUS: What do the various Test Settings in
Blackboard mean for my students?
Discussion of all of the Test Options and examples
from a student’s perspective including: availability,
attempts, feedback, exceptions, presentation.
Test
Survey
47/165
32/165

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EesyReports
EesySoft reporting data used in templates for identified ‘At risk’ courses
Category Action TOOL
Assessment Submit an assignment online Bb Assignment 0/285
Test 283/285
Turnitin Assignment N/A *
View grade and feedback Bb Assignment 0/285
Forum (Graded Thread) 0/285
Bb Rubrics 0/285
Test 283/285
Wiki 0/285
Collaboration Contribute/participate Blog 0/285
Bb Collaborate 0/285
Bb email 63/285
Forum 11/285
Groups 0/285
Journal 0/285
Wiki 0/285
Content Access content Learning Module 0/285
SCORM package 0/285
Add Files 0/285
Multi-media 0/285
Course Management Monitor progress My Grades 155/285
Tasks 0/285
Review Status 5/285
[Course code] Semester 1** 2017
(**Reporting from week 2 of semester, 6th March, 2017 and does not include Mobile access data)
StudentTool Adoption Report:

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EesyReports
Category Action TOOL
Assessment Create an assignment Bb Assignment 1/4
Turnitin Assignment 1/5
Create a collaborative assessment Graded Blog/Journal 0/5
Graded Forum 0/5
Graded Thread 0/5
Graded Wiki 0/5
Provide Grade/Feedback Forum 0/5
Thread 0/5
Blog/journal/wiki 0/5
Needs Grading 1/5
Bb Rubric 0/5
Create Rubric Bb Rubric 0/5
Create Self/Peer Assessment Bb Self/Peer Assessment 0/5
Create Test Pool 0/5
Test 4/5
Mobile Test 0/5
Collaboration Create Collaborative activity Blog 0/5
Discussion Board 0/5
Collaborate Ultra 0/5
Groups 0/5
Journal 0/5
Wiki 0/5
Contribute to Collaborative activity Blog Comment 0/5
Blog Entry 0/5
Reply to Forum 0/5
Journal Comment 0/5
Journal Entry 0/5
Add wiki page 0/5
Add/edit wiki content 0/5
Communication Create Announcement Announcement 0/5
Send Email Email 3/5
Staff Tool Adoption Report:

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Eesysoft Campaigns
• Ability to measure the
adoption of tools post
intervention (e.g.
Workshop/promotion/
upgrade etc.)

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Our experiences with Eesysoft…
• Very responsive to change requests
• Time differences not an issue
• We can already see that some users are ‘rating’ (thumbs up/down) support articles (EesySoft
will be releasing a report detailing user feedback on support articles)
• One complaint about the ‘annoying popups’.
• Data does not currently include Mobile access. Note: those who access via app don’t receive
our module notices now.
• No course data available for courses that are ‘unavailable’ (e.g. Wanting to look at poor
performing courses in a year). Eesysoft looking into this for us = 3 months time frame for this
function.

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The future…
• Less staff required to provide ‘how-to’ support?
• Shift in focus for existing support staff ie. Offer more course-specific consultations/quality
assurances on courses.
• Work with Heads of Schools to develop workshop/consultation action plans
• More conversations between Course Coordinators and Instructional Designers about Bb
tools.
• Remove existing Staff/Student help resources for Blackboard.

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Overview
☑ Support Reports
☑ Voting options
☑ New Support Tab
☑ What is to be expected of EesySoft in the future

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Support Reports
☑ Where in your LMS do students and faculty need
support
☑ How many support requests are deflected?
☑ Most viewed help items
☑ # escalations and preferred support channel

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Voting options
☑ Allow for students and faculty to vote on
EesyMessages as well as the Help items in
the Support Center
☑ Can be turned on or off

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New Support Tab
☑ Not traditional side bar for support but a
translucent question mark bubble
☑ Conversational interface for easy
navigation through help items
☑ Out of the box help items.

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EesySoft in the future
☑ Mobile data
☑ Content share for AU customers
☑ Integrated Chat

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Want to try EesySoft yourself?
Start a free 30-day trial!

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Questions