Trial run of CMS to begin in the fall
Task force recommends Blackboard CourseInfo for electronic course management

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

A task force composed of faculty members, librarians and IT support staff has recommended that UB use Blackboard CourseInfo as its standard electronic course-management system (CMS).

Blackboard will be piloted in a few target classes in the fall semester to ensure the software meets the needs of an institution as large and diverse as UB, CIT officials say.

Although use of Blackboard has been recommended, the choice is not a mandate, said David Willbern, associate vice provost for educational technology and chair of the Course Management Systems Task Force. Instructors are free to use Blackboard, another CMS or none at all, Willbern added.

By having Blackboard as the standard CMS supported centrally by the university, departments could have access to the software at no charge, he noted.

A CMS distributes instructional materials for viewing using the World Wide Web. It provides many benefits to students and instructors, said Willbern, who also serves as director of the Educational Technology Center. Faculty members can provide course materials for asynchronous, "anytime, any place" access, such as syllabi, lecture notes, scanned documents or images, library reserve materials, Web links, even audio and video files, he said. No special knowledge of HTML coding or image manipulation is required, he added, noting that the system allows for easy updating of announcements, assignments, and course calendars; addition of new material and modification of existing material.

A CMS "enhances the in-class experience," Willbern said. Students who miss classes can review material later, at their own pace and convenience. Moreover, students who attended class but did not understand a lecture can review online notes, documents, graphs or even a "PowerPoint" presentation or video lecture, he pointed out.

The system allows instructors to divide classes into collaborative groups that work online. Students can communicate via email, discussion boards and real-time chat rooms. Online testing is possible, he said, and ungraded surveys can be posted to help prepare students for in-class tests or exams. Grades can be posted to the CMS so that students can check their progress throughout the semester.

In addition, students can create their own Web pages and note-taking areas. And electronic files of various types can be transferred between students and instructors.

The task force was convened last fall to investigate the possibility of using a standard CMS at UB, Willbern said. The search for a CMS also was prompted by a general dissatisfaction with TopClass, a product that has been used for the past two years by Millard Fillmore College distance-learning courses and a few UB faculty members, according the task force's final report.

The group looked at a number of external products, as well as some UB-generated products, including MyUB from Administrative Computing, Web-O-Matic from the Walkway Node and such UB Wings applications as email, listservs and discussion boards.

Some vendors demonstrated their products on campus, and some UB faculty members, including Willbern, tested various CMS software packages.

In addition, some task-force members attended a conference at Wake Forest University where academic users of three CMS products demonstrated and discussed their chosen applications.

The choice, Willbern says, came down to two packages: Blackboard and WebCT.

"All these course-management systems have similar structures and features," he said. "What I like especially about Blackboard CourseInfo is its academic origin. Like WebCT, it was invented on a college campus-at Cornell and by a student.

"Beyond specific applications, the main idea is to provide a variety of course materials-texts, lectures, primary documents, images, audio and video-to our students in readily accessible form. The CMS allows UB faculty and instructors to take full advantage of our sudden 'most-wired' status, without having to retrain in IT expertise. Blackboard really is easy to use."

Willbern added that MFC already has switched from TopClass to Blackboard, and CIT personnel have been impressed by its performance.

Moreover, SUNY central administration is considering entering into a licensing arrangement with Blackboard, "so it made sense to go with that (software), he says.

JoAnn Illuzzi, associate director of academic services for CIT, stressed that although the task force has recommended that UB use Blackboard as the standard CMS, CIT will pilot the system with targeted classes for the fall semester to test the capability of the system.

"UB is a big, diverse place," Illuzzi said. "We want to be careful, test it (Blackboard), use it and try to get feedback (from users)."

But, she added, CIT is "optimistic" that Blackboard CourseInfo is the "product of the future."