Working Together: The Blackboard Academic Suite at CSU Eastbay Or How we learned to stop worrying and love the omb

During this session we will: describe our installation of BB. describe how we work together to resolve, support and improve our BB installation describe each individual’s specific responsibilities showcase a successful and integrated campus wide BB installation

CSUEB’s LMS History Support from beginning by Administration –Deans –Provost –President 1990’s –Web Course in a Box –Added eCollege – 1998 –Moved to BB at the time of Web Course in a Box purchase BB Implemented –Winter 2000: BB Level II with Portal –September 2000: Level III including automatic generation of courses and users. Integrated with SIS.

CSUEB’s approach to BB Support from the upper management BB is viewed as a communication tool for the students first and a LMS second Success is dependent on cooperation and support from all departments on campus All aspects of campus life can benefit from the tools available through BB.

CSUEB’s Hardware Environment Running on Sun Solaris 9 Separate Application and Database Servers Most data storage on SAN Nightly backups to tape Test environment is clone of production

BB Site Information Academic Suite Enterprise –Version Content System –Version

Administrative Policies Updates always performed on test platform first All major changes take place during quarter breaks Monitoring and notification system for service outages Nightly downtime for point in time backups Work closely with Network Operation Center (NOC) on any network issues

Database Support Upgrade DB to newer version (currently ) Apply Oracle Critical Patch Updates Work closely with support group and perform DB record update if needed –Enable/disable courses or enrollments –Update courses/enrollments Data Source Key –Update user information when manual account consolidation is needed Work closely with TSM on database related issues: –DB tuning based on guideline from TSM –DB insert/update/delete actions when needed

Other Duties/Admin Tasks Work with Enrollment Services to troubleshoot student information on BB side  Troubleshoot course/assignment/enrollment snapshot. Work with Identity Management Group to troubleshoot student information on BB side  Troubleshoot User snapshot. Quarterly admin tasks: –Running batch course archiving script quarterly. –Running course deletion for courses which are older than 8 quarter. –Maintain only last 6 months of data in Activity Accumulator table.

Building Blocks at CSUEB Home grown building blocks –E-Grades: Faculty can submit official grades online. –Early Alert: Faculty can submit progress report online and send to inform students of their progress in class early in the term. 3 rd party building blocks –Turnitin 2.0.3: Plagiarism prevention –Gartner Business and IT Research –Seneca Webmail –MERLOT RSS

Enrollment Services Technical Staff – 2 programmers Admissions Records Financial Aid

Enrollment Services – Student Information System (SIS) IBM Mainframe DB2 backend database FOCUS reporting software Automated FTP process Student Population – 12 – 14K bodies

Enrollment Services Student Information System (SIS) –Snapshot generation Courses (2,500) –Fall 2006 – 2500 course sections Enrollments of 42-45K Faculty Assignments (2,500) Organizations (47K)

Enrollment Services – Snapshot Development Challenges Defining Course eligibility Defining student eligibility Defining student organization groups Coordination between Identity Management System (IMS) and SIS Open University/Continuing Education Snapshot key creation process Frequency of updates Ongoing Problem resolution –Daily validation reports –Incorrect student records

Office of Faculty Development Brings faculty concerns to the decision making process Communicates to Faculty Provides Training/Workshops User Support/Troubleshooting Collaboration w/Media/Technology Services, Instructional Computing Services –User Support –Functionality

User Support/Training Helpdesk –Virtual – Referral Only Faculty –In conjunction with Faculty Development & Online Programs –Workshops, One-on-One, Boot Camp Students –No direct training – presentations on request

Problem Resolution –Connectivity –Identity - Login –Course Availability –Course Tool Availability –Test Reset –Data Transfer Course assignment to instructor Course enrollment for students

Hopefully we have demonstrated the importance of communication between the different groups the importance of working across group boundaries to support the application the need for awareness beyond individual support responsibilities the variety of skills needed to successfully support the application

Thank You! David Anne JuddInstructional Bernie Salvador Instructional Technology Consultant Tracy TanWeb, Java and Reporting Programmer Jeff WismanOperating Systems Analyst Terry SmithCoordinator, Instructional Technology Service Ctr

Questions…making the pieces fit.