Ubiquitous Learning and Instructional Technologies MOOC’s Updates

Update #1: Blackboard

Blackboard is a learning management system (LMS) that is used by many institutions including the City University of New York (CUNY). This LMS increases the transparency, organization, and accessibility of course information to both students and instructors by centralizing this in a course page in an online platform.

Blackboard is linked to the instructor and students' institution accounts so that information related to the course is streamlined in one place. For example, updates posted under the Annoucements tab from the instructor can be posted on Blackboard, in which they can opt to have emails about each update sent to the students’ emails. Instructors may add more sections and subsections in a side menu to organize their course information and content as desired. Instructors may also upload files, thereby increasing the accessibility of information and reducing the need for paper copies that students may potentially lose.

Blackboard allows for grading, deadlines, and academic honesty checks to be automated. Blackboard has a grading spreadsheet that is visible to both the instructor and student where assignment categories and weights can be set. Instructors can give assessments directly on Blackboard where they can set the score to be counted in the final grade spreadsheet and set deadlines so that Blackboard can flag any late assignments. Blackboard can also integrate third parties such as Turnitin to automate similarity checks against other sources and student submissions to check for academic honestly. This automation of scoring and visibility of grades increases the efficiency of grading assignments so that students can have a sense of agency of their academic performance to give themselves time to improve their study habits if their grade is too low.