Institute of Teaching and Learning
Deakin University
Blackboard provides a range of tools to help manage your unit sites:
Manage course: to customise your site
Folders: to reduce clutter and make items easier to find
Learning modules: to group items together, with a contents list
Selective release: to control the release of items in the site according to date, group and other criteria
File manager: to browse for files in your section, in other sections and on your computer
Importing and exporting content: to re-use learning modules, assessments and questions in other Vista sections and in subsequent semesters
Reports and tracking: to run reports on various student activities in the site, to help evaluate tool usage
Assessments: to survey students for quick feedback and qualitative responses
Discussions: to establish and maintain social presence and interactivity
Media Library: to enable students to add their own images and other media
Web Links: to enable students to add web links they think will be useful to others
A face-to-face teaching space relies on certain design features for it to work effectively, eg it requires sufficient space, easily locatable tools, a tidy work area, accessible information, an attractive look and a friendly feel. It also needs maintenance to ensure clutter is controlled, old materials are removed and useful materials are accessible for re-use. The same principles can be applied to managing your Blackboard site.
Usability
Re-using resources
Attractiveness
Social presence
In Web terms, usability means that 'people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their task' (Dumas & Redish 2007). When designing your Blackboard site, consider the following:
Students should be able to find things where they expect them to be. Put yourself in the shoes of a time-pressed, low-abililty student user when you decide where to put each item.
Students should be able to find what they need without having to scroll or click through numerous folders:
or folders wherever possible to minimise clutter on your home page. See Providing learning materials online for effective ways to use learning modules in Blackboard. to ensure students see only the items that relate specifically to them (eg Geelong, Warrnambool and off-campus students don't see the lecture schedule for Burwood students). guides for instructions. You can always reverse these decisions later if you decide those tools would be useful after all. Provide really clear instructions where to find things:
Items should be accessible to all, regardless of any disabilities students might have and how poor their Internet connections are. This means using clear fonts and layouts as well as minimising file sizes, providing transcripts of audio recordings, using meaningful 'alt' tags to describe any images, etc. For more information on accessibility see the Accessibility of electronic materials guidelines .
Deakin's indicators of quality in online units (Deakin University 2003) include
building in a mechanism for students to provide feedback on the design and usability of a unit's Blackboard site. You could use the Blackboard survey tool for this, or you could set up a dedicated discussion topic.
Another useful source of feedback is the Reports and tracking tool . This will enable you to run reports to find out which aspects of the site were well-used and which were not, and when students accessed various items.
Note that the quality indicators also recommend keeping a record of the unit team's responses to design and usability feedback.
The Deakin Usability web pages provide further useful guidelines that can be applied to a Blackboard site.
You don't need to re-create materials each semester. In fact, you can copy most of the items from one Blackboard section to another in a series of simple steps.
'Content' files such as HTML, Word, PowerPoint, image, audio and video files can be copied between any sections into which you are enrolled as a Designer. Follow the steps to add an existing file or document and browse through the entire list of courses and sections into which you are enrolled that appears on the left side of the Class Files window (on a grey background). Once you have located the file you wish to re-use, click on the box to the left of its name and then click OK. The file will then appear in the section in which you first clicked on 'Add file'.
Quizzes do not appear in a section's File Manager, so a different procedure is required to re-use these. It is the same procedure that allows you to re-use whole learning modules (including structure and files). See the Importing and exporting content in Blackboard guides for the steps required.
If you wish to re-use a large amount of material from a previous semester's section, you should contact your faculty teaching and learning staff . It is possible to save one section as a template for another, but only those with faculty (or group) level administrator access can perform this procedure.
Although usability is a more important principle for educational websites, your students will no doubt appreciate efforts to make it attractive. Remember that these two principles may conflict, however, and when they do usability should always win out.
Blackboard's default fonts and colours are easy to read but if you wish to add some style - without sacrificing readability or page loading time - try linking your HTML pages to a stylesheet. These pages will then appear with the colours, fonts, etc. specified in the stylesheet for each type of text, (eg heading styles, bullet styles, numbering styles, etc). The pages will have a look that is uniform across your site, and also hopefully distinctive and attractive.
You could also consider adding a banner graphic, for either your whole site or sections of it, to add interest.
See the Stylesheets and banners teacher guide for detailed information and examples.
An example of a banner
You can change the colours and icons for each Blackboard section. Be careful when making these changes, however:
Meaning-making is ultimately a social activity (Vygotsky 1978), and people learn more readily from 'salient' (ie real, important, consistent) others than from non-salient entities (Short, Williams & Christie 1976). Social contact has also been found to be a key factor in students' motivation to complete unit learning tasks and continue their education (Wells 1990). Even though a Blackboard site is a virtual medium, it is still possible to make it feel like it is populated by salient people.
'Presence' does not mean you have to be present in your site at all times, though evidence that you are there regularly adding useful materials or responding to queries will certainly help students feel that someone is in control. Whether you intend to or not, you will project some kind of personality in the way you choose your words and tone in any written communications in your site. A consistently supportive, sincere tone is important to encourage students to feel safe in the environment, and hopefully motivated to learn from you. A photograph of yourself can help your students feel like they know a bit more about you, so consider adding one to your 'Welcome' page or an introductory discussion posting. The usability and attractiveness of your site will also contribute to the impression your students form of you and your subject.
As you are no doubt aware, students can learn a good deal from their peers. In a virtual environment this takes a little more encouragement and management than it takes in most face-to-face learning environments.
A starting point is to get students to introduce themselves and provide a photograph. The traditional way to do this is to set up a 'Student talk' Discussion topic .
An alternative is to use the Media Library for this purpose. (You will first need to allow Media Library entries to be created by roles other than Designers, and then create a collection with Student Permissions set to allow students to create entries.) You can then create other collections to which students can contribute subject-related content in the form of text, images, video or audio.
You can also allow students to contribute their own Web Links , though like all areas of your site to which students can add postings or content, this should be monitored regularly to ensure contributions are appropriate. (You will first need to allow Web Links to be created by roles other than Designers, and then create a category with Student Permissions set to allow students to create links.)
Deakin University (2003) Online Technologies in Courses and Units Procedure, The guide, <http://theguide.deakin.edu.au/TheDeakinGuide.nsf/78941f2311f0ee15ca256d81001f3b4e/ 4d252055c8941cfbca256e64000f8bb3?OpenDocument> (accessed 1 March 2007).
Dumas, J. & Redish, J. (2007) 'What is usability?', Usability.gov Your guide for developing usable & useful Web sites <http://www.usability.gov/basics/whatusa.html> (accessed 1 March 2007).
Short, J., Williams, E. & Christie, B. (1976), The social psychology of telecommunications, John Wiley & Sons, London.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978), Mind and society: the development of higher mental processes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Wells, R.A. (1990), Computer-mediated communication for distance education and training: literature review and international resources, US Army Research Institute, Boise, ID.
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