Blackboard has released Version 9 with many new and improved features. Cal Poly Pomona will be upgrading our Blackboard environment to this new version, Bb9, starting in Summer in a limited, pilot test mode. During the Fall Quarter of 2009, pilot testing of Bb9 will continue while most of the courses are taught in the current version. If all goes well with the testing, all courses will be migrated to the new version during the Winter break. Below is a brief summary of the new features.
Accessibility Enhancement
- Blackboard’s most accessible version
- Keyboard reordering
- Customizable Interface
- More User-Friendly Help Feature
- Allows users with assistive technology to easily and quickly access the Text Editor
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Announcement
- Priority Ordering of Announcement Display
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Assignment
- Allows instructors to deploy assignment either to all students or to groups. For group assignment, instructors can allow one group member to submit and enter the grade that will apply to all group members.
- Allows instructors to create a multiple attempt assignment and grade each attempt.
- Allows students to attach a file and include additional information and hyperlinks in their assignment attempt using a Submission field instead of simply attaching a file.
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Blogs and Journals
- Journals
- Individual Journals - Allows individual students to record their course experiences both privately and publicly
- Group Journals - Allows groups of students to reflect their collaborative work and comment on their fellow group members’ findings
- Blogs
- Individual Blogs - Allows individual students to share thoughts and receive comments or feedback on entries. Avatars can be added optionally.
- Course Blogs – Allows all users in the course to share their thoughts and work in one common area that everyone can read and comment on.
- Group Blogs – Allows groups of students to collaboratively post thoughts and comment on each others’ work while all other users in the course can view and comment on their entry.
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Course Navigation
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Communication
- Wimba Express, which is an advanced virtual classroom or chat tool, is now available
- Facebook and iPhone applications allow students to stay connected with their class updates even when they are browsing Facebook. The iPhone application will allow them to learn on the go. Updates from Blackboard courses can be accessed from the iPhone and iPod Touch (pending institutional review).
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Discussion Board
- New features transformed the discussion board into a comprehensive learning tool.
- Option to hide the Search tool to avoid any confusion
- Option to schedule date and time restrictions
- Allows users to reply with quote
- Allows users to subscribe to the entire forum (direct response via link can be included on the subscribed email)
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Grade Center
Formerly Gradebook, more than just a way to record students’ grades, it is a dynamic and interactive tool.
- Allows instructors to see My Grades (student) view
- Allows instructors to send email to students and others (such as the student’s advisor, etc) directly from Grade Center
- Allows instructors to create smart views (viewing grade columns based on a category)
- Allows instructors to lock the columns without losing the student names column
- Capability to drop the lowest grade(s)
- View grade history
- View grade statistics by each student
- Allows students to receive notifications of new or changed grades posted by the instructor
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Groups
- Allows instructors to automatically enroll students in groups
- Allows group members to have one area to see the list of group assignments and notifications
- Allows group members to create their own discussion board forums
- Allows group members to blog thoughts and ideas for the rest of the course to comment on or add journal entries
- Allows students to create their own groups and to self sign-up to a group
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Help Link
Improved Help resources within the course.
- When a user clicks Help, it will show further information regarding the tools within the page the user is on
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My Places
A new area which gives users the following:
- One click access to common links and preferences
- Customizable list of commonly accessed links
- Quick access to personal settings
- Personal avatar image
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SafeAssign
An alternative to Turnitin, SafeAssign is a feature built into Blackboard to deter student plagiarism by identifying derivative content in student papers.
- Allows users to use a plagiarism detection tool without any additional license fees (pending institutional review)
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Scholar - A Social Bookmarking
A social bookmarking site.
- Allows students and instructors to collect and organize links to their favorite web sites from within Blackboard
- Allows users to share bookmarks with other users within the college and at other institutions
- Allows instructors to automatically update course sites with new content through dynamic feeds
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Self and Peer Assessment
Allows an Instructor to create an exercise, composed of one or more questions, each with one or more criteria, to be presented to their students for completion and evaluation.
- Create questions and criteria or rubric for each question
- Allows students to complete or submit an assignment
- Allows students to self-evaluate and to peer evaluate, upon submission
- Schedule the time to access any materials to read, to submit an assessment and to self-evaluate or peer-evaluate it
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Removed Features
- Electronic Blackboard – Now students can use Journals to complete these same tasks. It is also much more full featured than the Electric Blackboard tool.
- Digital Dropbox – The more robust Assignments tool and the Group File Exchange meets the needs of individual users and groups for completing and managing course work.
- Student Homepages – The new Blogs tool enables students to express their thoughts and reflect on learning within a course. The My Places tool allows Student to post their avatar system-wide (instead of limited to the course environment) and includes additional functionality and a customizable set of links to frequently accessed information as well as tools to personalize a user's own experience.
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Resources
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This page was last updated on May 12, 2009.
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