blackboard conference 2018

Individualised learning paths and artificial intelligence

Keynote by Volker Hirsch was around exabytes and the insane amount of data we capture on the internet and how this could be used for individualised learning.

Analytics to measure student engagement

Analytics was also a big feature at the conference with tools having to ability to measure student engagement in the VLE and how this might transfer into measuring student learning.

Blackboard Ultra on SaaS

This was a real highlight for me as I was able to see Ultra in practice. Ultra is Blackboard’s most advanced VLE platform and offers many features not available in Blackboard Learn (our current platform).

Blackboard mobile app (student)

Speaking about the imperatives of TEL at the conference, Dr Thierry Koscielnial – Vice Chief Digital Officer at Cnam, Paris said ‘Mobile is the New Frontier’ which is something we have known for a while, but never before has the need to deliver mobile technology to students been so important.

Blackboard mobile app (instructor)

The Bb Instructor app is not available for UCA until we upgrade in the summer. When that happens, instructors will be able to view courses and communicate with students. From June 2018, instructors will be able review, mark and comment on submitted Blackboard assignments.

Turnitin due dates displayed in the app

Currently at UCA, Turnitin assignment due dates are not displayed in the app’s due dates tab as the Blackboard/Turnitin integration has not yet been completed – only Ultra/SaaS users with the LTI Turnitin connector have this integration in the app. This is a big concern in the sector – as well as UCA.

The grades journey – Blackboard to SITS

Yanna Nedlecheva gave a really excellent and frank presentation about the work to date University of Westminster and Blackboard has done with transferring assessment grades from Bb’s grade centre to SITS. This integration work has been mainly successful but not without bumps.

Welcome to DevCon

First up DevCon, the morning introduction discussed the development of the Developer Portal for Blackboard and the progress that it has made with the interest accumulating.

LTI Advantage

As the Building Blocks have been the primary integration framework for learn, they are not best suited for SaaS and Ultra. SOAP Web Services have provided a limited set of integration points for Learn Hosted environments or SaaS and are not suitable for Ultra.

Integration Migration

There are 3 integration frameworks for Blackboard, SaaS, Ultra and Learn. These can be delivered in a Self-Hosted environment or a Managed-Hosted environment.

Collaborate API

Grade Traffic Controller is a middleware tool that sits between the Student Record System and Blackboard Learn.

Developer Roadmap

To end the DevCon 2018, Mark O’Neil (Senior Product Manager) highlights the API and future enhancements. As we start to create more self- service applications at Imperial College London, it has an interesting end to the conference.