1. JISC RSC London Blackboard Regional User Group Thursday 20 th January 2005 Welcome to Kingston!

2. 2 JISC RSC London Blackboard RUG 20 th January 2005 Programme for this morning 10.00 Overview of the day 10.15 BlackBoard Update 11.00 Group Q&A session 11.30 Break 11.45 College presentations: Westminster Kingsway College Richmond-upon-Thames College 12.30 Next Steps - Phil Butler, JISC 12.45 lunch

3. 3 JISC RSC London Blackboard RUG 20 th January 2005 Blackboard in the JISC RSC area 12-15 Colleges Generally popular Taken institutions forward Promoted e-learning Embedded in some curriculum areas

4. 4 JISC RSC London Blackboard RUG 20 th January 2005 Dinosaur or dragonfly? Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Ease-of-use Flexibility Momentum Some functional limitations TCO Student control E-/personalised learning & 14-19 agendas NLN products and services Open source VLEs Alternative LMSs Portal solutions

5. 5 JISC RSC London Blackboard RUG 20 th January 2005 Some questions… 1. What is the long-term role and function of proprietary VLE solutions such as Blackboard given the emergence of other commercial content management and portal technologies (such as Microsoft's SharePoint server) and the increasing popularity of free and open-source tools (such as Moodle)? 2. What are the priorities in Blackboard's own product development strategy over the next 3-5 years? With resources going into development of expensive enterprise solutions such as the Community Portal where does this leave users of the basic edition of the Blackboard Learning System, the majority of whom are in FE? 3. How is Blackboard addressing the particular needs and applications of the post-16 teaching and learning community in the UK? How, for example, can it accommodate NLN (and other IMS content packages), QTI assessment materials (such as those generated by TOIA) and e-portfolios?