In this session at BbWorld16, we will share NIU’s recent Blackboard Collaborate roll-out strategy, practices, and lessons learned. Learn how NIU’s carefully planned adoption approach has been helping to make anytime synchronous collaboration simpler, more reliable, and more enjoyable. Bring your own questions and experiences and join in the discussion!
2. Presenters
Jason Rhode
Director
Faculty Development and
Instructional Design Center
Northern Illinois University
jrhode@niu.edu
@JasonRhode
Jeff Geronimo
Senior Consultant
Blackboard, Inc
jeff.geronimo@blackboard.com
@jeffminor
Stephanie Richter
Assistant Director
Faculty Development and
Instructional Design Center
Northern Illinois University
srichter@niu.edu
@slrichter
3. Northern Illinois University Overview
• Main campus in DeKalb, IL
located 65 miles West of Chicago
• Total enrollment: 20,130
• 1,174 Instructional faculty
• Student to instructor/faculty
ratio: 15:1
• Online programs: 8 undergrad,
7 graduate, 7 certificates
4. Blackboard Usage at NIU
As of Fall 2015:
• 96% of students
• 92% of instructional
Faculty/Staff/TAs
• 67% of course sections
• 4.18 course sections per
student on Blackboard
5. Blackboard Collaborate at NIU
2012
• Gradual rollout of
Blackboard
Collaborate
• Held preview
workshops
• Piloted with a small
group of faculty
• Dual deployment for
2012-2013
2015-2016
• Graduate rollout of
Ultra experience
• Began using for
workshops May 2015
• Piloted with a small
group of faculty
• Dual deployment for
2016-2017
2008
• Committee of faculty
reviewed web
conferencing tools
• Wimba Classroom
was selected
• Faculty Development
begins offering online
workshops to
demonstrate use of
web conferencing
6. Blackboard Collaborate at NIU
• Blackboard Collaborate since
2011
• Fully-integrated in
Blackboard Learn, available
to all Blackboard Courses
and Communities
• 400+ sessions per year
• Used for variety of purposes
in f2f, blended, and fully-
online courses
7. Rollout
Strategy
Generate excitement and
introduce slowly
Model practice
Communicate A LOT
Identify user needs
with survey or chats
Pilot with key faculty
both experienced and novice
Model new features
in online workshops
Track use
and collect feedback
Notify users
of change & training
8. Rollout Timeline
May 2015
Faculty Development offered first online workshop
using Collaborate Ultra
Featured Ultra on website - niu.edu/blackboard
Spring 2015
Faculty & staff participated in Collaborate Ultra
technical preview
9. Rollout Timeline
Fall 2015
Surveyed users on features in Collaborate vs. Ultra
Opened up use to more faculty, sessions created in SAS
Communicated new features via newsletter, workshops
Summer 2015
Select faculty use Collaborate Ultra for their courses
10. Survey Results
Have not used
14%
< 1 year
4%
1 year
11%
2-3 years
39%
4 or more
32%
Length of Collaborate Use Most Used Classic Features
PowerPoint
Audio Set-up
Wizard
Polling
Recordings
Telephony
Whiteboard
59%
59%
44%
41%
41%
37%
11. Survey Results
Most Anticipated Ultra FeaturesMost Important Classic Features
Session Recordings
Application Share
Blackboard Learn Integration
Displaying Video
Bb
High quality audio and video
Faster, sharper
application share
Java-Free, browser-based
Modern user experience
Polling
12. Rollout Timeline
Summer 2016
Added Blackboard Learn integration - Ultra using LTI
and Classic using Building Block
Officially announcing availability of Ultra
Spring 2016
Ultra used for full-day Teaching Effectiveness Institute
First hands-on training on Ultra
13. Faculty Feedback
“I used the tool for a
course offered to first-year
graduate students, many
of whom work full-time
and are considered mid-
career.
They found it extremely
useful to interact with the
instructor without making
the trek to the campus.”
14. Faculty Feedback
“I had never used
Blackboard Collaborate,
yet learning how to use
Blackboard Collaborate
Ultra was very easy.
The process is very
intuitive and the
students also seemed to
pick it up easily.”
15. Faculty Feedback
“I have used Blackboard
Collaborate on several
occasions both for teaching as
well as to work on research
projects with colleagues in
other parts of the country.
I like the features of being able
to share files on the screen as
we discuss items.”
16. Faculty Feedback
“The technology seemed
to work well and
everyone who has used
it liked the overall look
and feel.
Overall, very positive,
very easy to use. Love
it.”
18. Logging In to Bb Student from a Learn Course
Enter your Information
-----Your school name
-----Your username and password
-----Your password
Tap Log in
Access the session from within a course
19. Logging In to Bb Student Using a Link
Link Sent via
Email
Launch of Bb
Student
Enter the
Session
20. Tips for Adoption
• Learn as much as you can - join previews, attend
roadmaps, attend office hours
• Survey users to determine what is important to them
• Model use of Blackboard Collaborate
• Build excitement
• Communicate early and frequently
Ideas: blog posts, newsletters, social media, email
21. Tips for Adoption
• Invite key faculty to participate in a pilot
• Collect and share feedback from faculty and students
• Be clear about limitations; share the roadmap
• Offer hands-on opportunities for faculty to try features
• Offer in-session assistance for first-time users
Good news/bad news:
Good news was many of these features were available or in development. Bad news was they were not all available
Even worse news – we had no way to deliver Learn integration at the time of the survey. That meant we had to wait until after our upgrade to October 2014 to officially roll out. Also, no video or polling but those rated very highly as important
Still, there was a fair amount of excitement about some of the new features
Faculty were blown away by Ultra in our TEI. Other staff wanted to hold their own institutes, as well
More current users moved, and continued to have very positive feedback
“Open Bb Student and search for the full name of your institution. If you’re unable to find your institution, try modifying your search. If your school is part of a larger institution or district, try searching for that name instead.
Log in with your Blackboard Learn username and password. These are typically the same credentials you use to access your Blackboard courses on a computer.
Review the First Time User Orientation. The first time user experience provides an introduction to Bb Student. It provides a brief overview of the feature set and showcases the user experience developed to help expedite workflows for students and directs them to the content they need the most. This video will run on it’s own or you can swipe to move it.”
“For those of you that have downloaded Bb Student and want to participate in today’s practice activities, this is how you’ll log in to our session today. For the best experience, we recommend that your device be fully charged and/or plugged in before you continue. Also for today’s session, I’m going to ask that you go to your device settings, specifically to sound, and put your device on vibrate or turn the sound off.
Tap the link provided by your instructor or session moderator. Typically, this link may come in an email, a calendar invite, or may be posted in a course. For our practice today, this will be the same link you used to access the session from your desktop browser.
The experience might be slightly different depending on your device. On iOS devices, after opening the link from your instructor, you might see a pop-up window that asks if you want to open the page in Bb Student? Select Open. On Android devices, the Collaborate session opens directly if you are already logged in to Bb Student.
Your mobile web browser provides access to join the session using Bb Student, and if not installed, allows a user to download and install the app. Tap Join session using Bb Student to launch the session in the Bb Student app.
If you are not authenticated within Bb Student, a link will appear below Type your school’s name that reads Join Collaborate without logging in. Tap on this link. Enter your name and click Join. For the purposes of our session today, enter your name with a dash behind it and mobile. I’ll add an example to the chat. (Shawn-Mobile) This will allow you to stay on the browser based application as well if you’d like to note the difference between the experiences.
If you’re participating in today’s hands-on practice, once you’ve connected via your mobile device, you will want to mute or, if desired, log out of the desktop application to avoid a feedback loop.”
“Provide the session link to students in an easy-to-find place. Display it prominently in your course with a note that the link must be opened in a mobile web browser on a phone. Better yet, email the link to students so it's easy to open in a mobile web browser.
Give students the link to this help page and instruct them to review it before your Collaborate session.
Use a URL shortener such as bitly.com or tinyurl.com (both available in English only) for your Collaborate session. Shorter links are easier for students to type into their mobile browsers.
If you want students to present during a session, advise them to log in to Collaborate with the Ultra experience in the desktop web browser instead of the app. Only the desktop version allows slide advancement and multi-page document navigation while sharing a file.”