Blackboard World #2 - Blackboard Mobile

One of the really exciting topics at Blackboard World 2011 is Mobile.  This is an area where Blackboard has invested and is showing early returns in the form of great functionality and even greater promise.  The Blackboard Mobile Platform is made up of two modules;  Mobile Learn and Mobile Central.  The company presents lots of (probably unnecessary) evidence that the mobile space is taking off rapidly on college campuses.  There are already more smart phones being sold than workstations and laptops.  Moreover, the evidence is mounting that individuals spend more time connecting to the internet on their mobile devices than they do on other land-based devices.  There is no doubt that mobile will make a major impact on how educational content and student services are delivered to and consumed by learners.

The Mobile Learn module is in many ways simply an extension of the Blackboard Learn Platform.  The tool provides access for students as well as faculty and designers to their Blackboard course content.  While not all content can be automatically formatted for mobile devices, (and some content, like large charts or tables for example, lends itself to small screen real estate), a surprising amount of content and course features have been adapted from the traditional blackboard course.

At ATSU, we have installed a free version of the Blackboard Mobile Learn module for testing on our Blackboard Learn 9.1 environment.  It includes all of the same functions and features as the paid version, however, it can only be accessed on Wi-Fi or via the Sprint network.  Faculty and students who have courses on 9.1 are welcome to try it out.  You can download the app from either the iTunes App Store or the Android Market.  After downloading, you will need a special code (use 5DJZWX) in the search area to access A.T. Still University.  Remember though, this tool is still in test mode at ATSU.

The Blackboard Mobile Central app may prove to be even more exciting than Learn over the long term.   This tool allows Universities to develop their own mobile content.  While many schools rave about mobile campus maps and smart phone links to athletic information, these applications don't have much appeal for the ATSU community.  The tool, however, can be used to link to institutional systems outside of Blackboard to create features like student directories, access to library resources, or student grades.  As other third party systems like Google Apps for Education also expand into mobile formats, this tool may be a way to organize mobile development and official apps.  As an example, take a look at what the Medical College of Georgia has done with their mobile app.

I believe these tools have significant potential for ATSU and we are gathering information on how both tools can be implemented with our systems and how they match up with the mobile application strategy under development.  Let me know what you think and what features you would like to see in the mobile space.

Blackboard World #1 - Blackboard Analytics

I am in Las Vegas this week participating in Blackboard World 2011, the Blackboard User Conference.  I should have several posts this week about the conference and the various product announcements by Blackboard, not to mention the miscellaneous rumblings related to the announced purchase of Blackboard by Providence Equity Partners for ~$1.6 Billion.

On Monday and Tuesday, I am attending a Blackboard CIO Symposium event.  This event is targeted to CIOs and allows for some candid conversations about where Blackboard and the education software industry in general are headed.  The first session on Monday was about the Blackboard Collaborate Platform and the recently purchased iStrategy product.  This product is a BI (Business Intelligence and Analytics tool) that I have previously blogged about.  Not a whole lot has changed, so I won't say much more other than the fact that Blackboard has formally announced the addition of a Blackboard Learn Analytics module to this platform.  This module is the 6th module within the Analytics platform.

There session contained a very interesting conversation around the entire Analytics and Business Intelligence areas for education.  Several comments revolved around how the barriers to better use of analytics within our industry are not simply technical.  Many of my peers felt that administration within higher ed have been cautious about sharing data with faculty and other stakeholders and the culture in several organizations was perceived to lack transparency.  Thus, a culture shift may be needed as part of an Analytics and BI implementation.  Another barrier to immediate use of metrics is the fact that many organizations have not contemplated what data structures are necessary to get the desired metrics.   And for those organization which have defined their data, it was noted that there is a significant lack of expertise and even training for the types of skills needed to make analytics a fundamental part of the culture.  The best advice was to get data in many people's hands and then iterate repeatedly to improve both the usefulness and the skills.

Is Blackboard for Sale?

This week Blackboard, the LMS/CMS used by A.T. Still University, announced the company had retained  investment banking firm, Barclays Capital, as an advisor regarding an unsolicited proposal to purchase the company.  So does this mean that Blackboard is for sale?  Absolutely, it does.

To be fair, businesses are always for sale, but the receipt of an unsolicited bid puts the company "in-play" and sets some structure around the timing and pricing of any possible sale.  The fact that a purchase offer has been made is evidence that some outside party believes they can manage the assets of the company to provide more value (i.e. they can make more money) than the existing management is currently providing.  The consequences of this scenario are difficult to avoid, because an unsolicited offer changes not only the company, but also the company's industry.  Rarely can companies go back to business as usual after this type of development.  I suspect there will either be a change of ownership within 6 months, or the company will begin a slow and long downward spiral.

As a Blackboard customer, ATSU has first hand experience of the pain associated with the company's growth.  Our history includes a very difficult transition from WebCT after Blackboard acquired the company in 2005.  As the two companies merged, there was a great deal of product confusion and precious little product support.  Frustration was high.  That said, Blackboard was able, over time, to execute on their vision of integrating the Blackboard and WebCT LMS/CMS products.  The current version of the Blackboard Learn Platform includes many of (but not all) the best features from both products.  I would say that it is now a mature product.

But that may just be the problem.  Blackboard matured during a period when the education "business" was able to spend a lot of money on the promise of new technology.  Its business model depends on the revenue generated from sales of license rights and annual maintenance for the software.  The mature nature of the Blackboard product and its related business model may make it difficult for the company to compete with open source projects and cloud based software initiatives which many students and faculty increasingly see as more intuitive, responsive, and cutting edge.  To continue to grow and to be relevant, Blackboard needs ownership that constantly delivers new functionality in a way that customers can instantly experiment with, at no cost, and with no negative impact to existing features.  While Blackboard has shown signs of recognizing this need, so far they continue to expand and sell software features via a traditional platform model.

Perhaps new ownership (or simply the threat thereof) will be exactly what the company needs.

Blackboard Analytics

Today I participated in a webinar session on Blackboard Analytics with Jim Hermens, a Senior VP and General Manager of Blackboard Analytics (jim.hermens@blackboard.com) with Blackboard.  Analytics is marketed by Blackboard as a separate platform - this means it is independent of the Blackboard Learn tool and customers pay extra for it.  The product was integrated into the Blackboard portfolio after the iStrategy purchase (end of 2010).  The product is the base of the platform for education Analytics and Reporting and is Blackboard's newest platform.  The product is in use by over 100 education clients today.

Blackboard considers 3 components for Analytics

1. Performance Measurement
2. Reporting and Self-Service
3. Decision Support

The tool can take information out of the SIS.  Existing ETL packages (Extract, Transfer, and Load)  include Banner, Peoplesoft and Colleague.   Integration with other SIS systems, like Campus Management, would require custom consulting work.

Blackboard Analytics is not what they would consider a reporting tool, but rather provides the platform for the data warehouse that could integrate with existing reporting tools (hyperion, cognos, sas).  The tool really provides the OLAP Cubes to analyze the Data warehouse.  Other database tables can also be integrated to the tool for additional reporting and analysis.

The product currently has the following Modules (priced individually):  

• Student Management (Enrollment, Academic Affairs)
• Financial Aid (Still in process)
• Finance
• Human Resources
• Advancement (Still in process)

SUMMARY:  This tool would be an alternative to the eThority package that ATSU is considering testing.  Since eThority already has an ETL with Campus Management's database, ATSU would be able to get the eThority product up and running more quickly than with the Blackboard Analytics tool.

App Review - Flipboard integration with Google Reader

This past week, Flipboard, a personalized, social magazine app for the iPad, released a new version (Version 1.2) causing me to take a deeper look at this app.  What I was hoping for was an alternative way of viewing the content I have set up in Google Reader through my Google Apps (for ATSU) account.  My hopes were not disappointed.  The combination of Flipboard and Google Reader is fantastic!  My personalized content feeds really come to life with the beautiful layouts provided by Flipboard.

Over the past few months, I have learned how much time I can save in my professional reading by using an RSS news reader like Google Reader (see previous blog post).  I have set up my Google Reader feeds into about 20 folders which are dedicated to a particular topic.  I think of them as sections of a newspaper.  I have folders for local news, humor, sports, and vendor news, just to name a few.  By organizing my online reading into these sections, I can more easily stay up to date on topics of interest from several different sources side-by-side.  I'm sure it saves me more hours per week.

With Flipboard, I can integrate the content from "folders" in my Google Reader configuration into "sections" within Flipboard.  Now I simply click on a Flipboard section like "Open Education Courses" and all of my content is displayed in Flipboard with enhanced graphics and beautiful formatting.  I can simply click on any article teaser (which usually is shown with a headline, source, date, and the first paragraph or so of the article) to get to the full content of the article.  The response time is nearly immediate and the interface is incredibly intuitive.  It is much easier than turning the Newspaper to page 4 to read the rest of a front page story.

Flipboard also uses the wonder of the iPad's page turning metaphor to go from page to page to see a new list of articles.  Clicking on an article, or simply turning to the next page, triggers the "read" flag on Google articles so that I don't have to look at them more than once...even if I go back to the desktop or smartphone interface for Google Reader.  All of my reading on Flipboard synchronizes back to my Google Reader account.

Another awesome feature is how easy it is to share articles from within Flipboard to the rest of my Google Reader followers.  A simple click of an icon and I can choose to share an article not only on Google Reader, but through a variety of social tools, or even via email.  I can also set up Flipboard sections for my other Social Network tools like Twitter, but the Twitter integration is limited in its ability to track which Tweets have been read.

All and all, I am VERY pleased with this new version.  Being able to comment on my Google Reader feeds and share them is a huge benefit.  I'd like to see a few more options for personalizing section names, etc. but I am hopeful these will be coming soon.  I highly encourage any iPad fans to check out Flipboard and integrate it with your Google Reader account.