1. Living on the Cutting Edge Client Perspectives of Beta & Early Release Programs

2. Session Focus Educate – Who are we? –Seneca College –Kettering University –ROC Midden Nederland –Salzburg University Innovate – What are we doing? –Beta Partners –Product Development Partners Everywhere – Where are we & What have we learned? –US, Netherlands, Canada, Austria –Benefits outweigh the risk of Beta Testing

3. About Seneca Toronto Area - Nine Locations –Newnham –Seneca@York –King –Markham

4. About Seneca Seneca Student Profile –Full-time students 20,000 –Part-time students 90,000 –More than 45,000 full-time and part-time students pass through Seneca’s campuses each week

5. About Seneca My.Seneca Facts –Every course has web support 25,006 course shells(4 semesters) –Every Student has a personalized My.Seneca 68,326 Student accounts –Every Faculty has a personalized My.Seneca 3,627 Faculty accounts –My.Seneca server Over 1 million hits per day

6. Beta Testing @ Seneca Seneca was a Beta test site for: –Blackboard Release 6.0 –Application Pack 6.1 –Application Pack 6.2 –Application Pack 6.3 –Blackboard Release 7.0 –Application Pack 7.1

7. Beta Testing @ Seneca Why Beta Test? –Seneca’s vision is to lead in In Innovation…… –by developing a culture that encourages risk-taking, entrepreneurship, flexibility, and by embracing change in the interest of organizational effectiveness –Access to latest and greatest product functionality –Ability to bring recommendations to Bb Development

8. Beta Testing @ Seneca What Skills & Resources are needed? –Risk Management –Good Documentation & Support –Dedicated group of users wanting to participate –Ability to ‘think outside the box’ –Duplicate production environment –People Time

9. Beta Testing @ Seneca The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Blackboard Release 6 (6.0) Good - Portal Improvements were great. Bad – Building Blocks had to be rewritten Ugly- Migration of Production System –Application Pack 1 (Bb 6.1) Good – Content System, Text Box Editor, Fixes for Migration Issues Bad – Course Copy Process duplicated content items

10. Beta Testing @ Seneca The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Application Pack 2 (Bb 6.2) Good – Multiple Roles, Unlimited Institution Roles Bad – Email Problems – Bad Addresses –Application Pack 3 (Bb 6.3) Good – Survey & Assessment Question Types, Adaptive Release Bad – Timing of Release, Amount of Documentation Required for users, Adaptive Release Rules don’t copy

11. Beta Testing @ Seneca The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Blackboard Release 7 (Bb 7.0) Good – Language Packs (ability to change labels not just language) Bad – Time requirement for Database conversion –Application Pack 1 (Bb 7.1) Good – Discussion Board Changes, Cross Browser VTBE, Beta Communication Processes Bad – Documentation Requirements & Timing of Release

12. About Kettering Private engineering and business school in Flint MI Formerly GMI Institute of Engineering & Management (GM-owned from 1919-1982) 2,500 undergraduates 1,200 graduates Two sections of undergraduates Distance Learning graduate students Fully co-op school

13. About Kettering March 2000 - Blackboard (Basic) purchased Fall 2000 - first online classes run July 2001 - Blackboard system administrator hired July 2002 - Enterprise implemented October 2004 - Content System added Today - more than 150 courses have an online component 200+ organizations

14. Beta Testing @ Kettering Kettering was a Beta test site for: –Application Pack 6.3 –Application Pack 7.1

15. Beta Testing @ Kettering Why Beta Test? –Kettering's mission is to educate technical leaders of the world so the university needs to be on the cutting edge –System administrator is a risk-taker –Get the latest and greatest before others (the- more-toys-you-have syndrome)

16. Beta Testing @ Kettering What Skills & Resources are needed? –Troubleshooting skills, e.g. steps for replication, patterns of behavior, viewing problems from all angles, etc. –Ability to be creative – when bugs are found are there ways around them? –Being vigilant (a constant eye on everything) –Hardware (production, testing, development)

17. Beta Testing @ Kettering The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Application Pack 3 (Bb 6.3) Good – adaptive release before start of school year in July meant I could set up software licensing courses and train Helpdesk staff for Blackboard support Bad – zip files for assignment downloads did not work for files with spaces in file name

18. Beta Testing @ Kettering The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Application Pack 1 (Rel 7.1) Good – discussion board upgrade will benefit our distant learning courses, new domain capabilities mean sharing Blackboard administration with others Bad – first beta releases were out when I was attempting to install new hardware for production environment, bb-config.properties can not have IP address for database – must have full machine and domain names

19. About ROC Midden Nederland Centre of the Netherlands – 45 locations

20. About ROC Midden Nederland Senior Vocational training 6 sectors: – Technology – Health and welfare – Economics – Tourism – Adult Education (f.i. Dutch as second language) – Contract training

21. About ROC Midden Nederland Senior Vocational training 4 levels: – Level 1: Assistant – Level 2: Basic trade practitioner – Level 3: Trade professional – Level 4: Middle management / Specialist Age 16 - …..

22. About ROC Midden Nederland 11,175 full time students 13,650 part-time students staff: 2500 (1711 FTE)

23. About ROC Midden Nederland Dec 2000 - Blackboard (Basic) purchased Feb 2004 – Bb Enterprise installed Feb – July 2004 - migration Bb basic 5.5 and Bb basic 5.7 ML into one Bb enterprise October 2004 - Content System added

24. About ROC Midden Nederland today: 1000 + courses 250+ organizations 1500 Content System users 3 sectors have their own portal in Bb

25. Beta Testing @ ROC MN ROC Midden Nederland was a Beta test site for: –Application Pack 3 –Version 7 –Version 7.1

26. Beta Testing @ ROC MN Why Beta Test? –Getting insight in the technology behind Blackboard –Some influence on product development –The shift from traditional to competence based education creates a need for new tools and features: We want to use these tools and features as soon as possible for optimal support of the educational process.

27. Beta Testing @ ROC MN What Skills & Resources are needed? –investigate problems analytically –creativity in finding workarounds for problems that are not directly solved –testing from an technical but also educational point of view –good knowledge of the way new features and tools wil be used –enthusiasm to try, test and report –time and equipment (test server) for testing

28. Beta Testing @ ROC MN The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Application Pack 3 Good – finally a complete Dutch version, release just before summer break gave instructors and TA more time to experiment with all new possibilities. Bad – problems with multilanguage functionality (how to convince Bb they really had a problem?)

29. Beta Testing @ ROC MN The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Version 7 Good – language pack editor, better email functionality (although we lost our tweaks). Bad – little exchange of experiences between beta testers, testperiod during our summer holidays, late release of SP for problems that were already solved in 6.3

30. Beta Testing @ ROC MN The Good, The Bad & The Ugly – Application Pack 1 (Bb 7.1) Good - discussionboard, self defined new system roles, working with domains for system management, very good communication with other beta testers and Blackboard Bad - almost no development in CS and integration with LS

31. About Salzburg Traditional Medium Size University: –11.400 Students –1.040 Faculty staff –4 Schools (Theology, Law, Natural Science, Arts & Humanities) Advantage of location: –Situated between Vienna and Munich –Strategy meets the needs of the University

32. About Salzburg Center for Flexible Learning – ZFL: –Centralized service & support structure tasks: Service and elaboration of strategies –Directly responsible to the vice rector for education –Since 2001: working with Blackboard (Blackboard learning and community system) –Since 2006: additional license for „Bildungsregion“ (Blackboard basic system)

33. About Salzburg Every-day-use of Blackboard: –7.000 Students (out of 11.400) –840 Instructors (including freelancers) –535 Blackboard backed courses in winter term 2005/2006 –= 23% portion of all lectures being held at the Salzburg University

34. Beta Testing @ Salzburg Salzburg University was a Beta test site for: –Application Pack 3 –Version 7 –Version 7.1

35. Beta Testing @ Salzburg Why Beta Test? –to get new product features as soon as possible –to „act“ instead of „react“

36. Beta Testing @ Salzburg What Skills & Resources are needed? –Source Control/Bug Tracking Skills –Hardware: additional server for a real life capable test environment –active Beta group (providing feedback):

37. Beta Testing @ Salzburg The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Application Pack 3 Good – adaptive release Bad – problems with zip files

38. Beta Testing @ Salzburg The Good, The Bad & The Ugly –Version 7 Good – better performance (faster!) Bad – German characters are not supported in some parts, e.g. assessment

39. Get Involved In… Blackboard’s Development Process –Product Strategy –Blackboard Idea Exchange –Product Development Partners –Beta Partners –Early Release Partners –General Availability

40. Questions/Comments Thank You!! JoAnna Hunt – Seneca College [joanna.hunt@senecac.on.ca] Donna Wicks – Kettering University [dwicks@kettering.edu] Henk van Rijssen – ROC Midden Nederland [h.vanrijssen@rocmn.nl] Richard Posch – Salzburg University - ZFL [richard.posch@sbg.ac.at]