Blackboard

Blackboard Campus Edition (CE) 8 is no longer be available to teach courses . The new Blackboard Learn system is available and fully supported. If you have courses you want assistance moving from the Blackboard CE 8 system to BBLearn, please contact the ITS Help Desk at 966-4817 or via email at help.desk@usask.ca. For more information on the upgraded Blackboard Learn please see the upgrade web site.

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Blackboard Learn (BBLearn) is a full-featured and widely adopted virtual learning environment. It provides an integrated set of tools to support online content delivery, learning communities, and assessment. It can be used to support courses that are completely online or used to augment a course delivered face-to-face, by satellite, etc. With BBLearn you can:

• distribute course materials
• communicate with students
• help organize students
• facilitate student group work
• deliver online quizzes and exams
• manage student marks

Creation of courses, identification of instructors, and placing students into courses in Blackboard is handled automatically based on current information in the student registration system. Alternatively, courses in BBLearn which do not correspond to a class in the student registration system can be created and populated manually.

 

In This Section

• Request a Development Course
• Request a Test Course
• Activate Section for Instruction
• Instructor Start of Term Procedures
• Getting Help
• Log In Assistance
• Report a Problem

 

Features

 

Integration with PAWS

Courses taught using BBLearn are accessible from within PAWS.

 

Automatic Management of Class Lists

BBLearn provides automatic management of class lists and other administrative functions. Within minutes of registering in a course, students appear in the Blackboard class grade book. Instructors do not need to manually maintain their own class lists.

 

Comprehensive Quizzing Capabilities

Course developers can easily develop online quizzes that use a variety of question types. These quizzes can be automatically graded by the system, saving significant time for instructors. Students can automatically receive tailored feedback based on the answers they provide in the quiz.

 

Support for Individual and Group Assignments

Instructors can easily create, distribute, grade, and return assignments complete with notes to students. Students can easily obtain, and hand in their assignments online. Instructors can develop standardized grading forms to be used to easily grade assignments.

 

Multiple Communication Methods

BBLearn provides a variety of ways to communicate with students, including discussions, course blogs, student journals, chat rooms, shared whiteboards, email, and more. Discussion topics can also be graded if desired based on instructor-defined grading criteria. 

 

Support for Student Group Work

Students can be assigned groups with their own private work areas, discussion boards, chat rooms, etc. Groups can be graded as a group, or individually.

 

Support for Multiple Teaching Methodologies

Blackboard supports a variety of teaching methodologies far beyond just posting PowerPoint slides. For example, instructors can control the dates when specific course content is visible to students. Instructors can hide certain content until students have demonstrated mastery of previous content. Quizzes can be used as a study tool by allowing students to take the quiz as often as they want, getting a different random question each time. Courses can allow students to work individually, or in teams. Evaluation can be done by instructors, or by peer review of other students.

 

Support for Multiple Teaching Technologies

Blackboard supports a variety of teaching technologies, including IMS Content Packaging, IMS Quiz and Test Interoperability, and SCORM modules. Instructors can easily use course content and quizzes developed by other people, even if those people use a different learning management system. Course materials developed in BBLearn can easily be shared with colleagues.