Blackboard Discovery Workshops

Posted on: 27 March 2015
By: saundeg
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Filed under: Blackboard

A Blackboard discovery workshop was held on the 24th February. This one day event was attended by around 40 staff representing the academic community, IT support, library, student support services (careers, health and wellbeing), recruitment, admission and marketing, academic registries and core Blackboard support staff.

The day comprised a number of activities the most extensive of which involved groups deciding on a student persona and then trying to think through what that student might need from a Blackboard portal.

All groups decided on an undergraduate persona and the range of information and services they felt critical to their student were quite similar and can be collectively summed up as including:

Information

This should be personalised and include:

– timetable
– week to view calendar of timetable/events
– notifications (upcoming tasks, e.g. assessments)
– Progress bars (assessments, course)
– Key contacts including tutors and office hours
– Course Facebook page

Other key information included:

– Discounted goods and services for students
– Student support services (counselling, careers)
– Finance support
– Registry support
– Induction and enrolment information

News should include:

– SU events
– Faculty events
– Training and placements
– Extra curricular opportunities
– Talent bank
– External newsfeeds

Other key information services included: Library, email. print

An example of feedback from one of the groups is shown below:

Each group was also asked how things may  need to be different for postgraduates. It was suggested that key for them would be knowing their timetable a year in advance (to support the need for greater flexibility), ‘different’ employability support, targeted training and research seminars