Blackboard 9 will debut on campus this August when students and faculty return to campus. The updated version of Blackboard (CourseVU) will offer additional communication options and a new Web 2.0 interface. As the University gains momentum in the area of Academic Technology, the upgrade will allow students and faculty a more advanced platform for online and hybrid education.

Increased notification options was a very important feature for developers of Blackboard 9. A new notification dashboard will alert users to items that need to be attended to, such as, assignments, gradebook items, and deadlines. Additionally, Blackboard is reaching out to other technologies by creating an App for the Apple iPhone and a Facebook sync option. Now, users do not have to login to Blackboard to recieve notification or perform special tasks like participating in online discussions.

For instructors, the upgrade provides an improved gradebook and a drag-and-drop interface for course building. Additionally, changes are being made by the IT department on how Blackboard will interface with Datatel allowing more flexibility for the IT department to meet common requests from Faculty members.  Instead of creating each course in CourseVU, instructors will now opt-in through DataVU to help reduce the amount of data stored on the server.

A pilot group of instructors will meet at the end of the semester to test Blackboard 9 and provide feedback for the roll-out team. Training documents and hands-on training sessions will be available throughout the summer. Faculty members interested in participating in the pilot or interested in getting an account on the test server can contact Jodie Reminder (jodie.reminder@valpo.edu) for more information.