iSean

i’ve surveyed my students this week after having so many contact me last week during the midterm and immediately after to note problems with Blackboard (our university provided online learning management system). by far the biggest problem was that the “new” Visual Editor in Blackboard (NG) was covering up some of the questions on the exam. in fact, this was the case for the vast majority of students.

some of the responses on the midterm started this way, “I couldn’t fully read the question, but I am guessing that you want us to . . . ” or something to that affect. this is coming from students using the 9th version of Blackboard (i believe it’s also called, Blackboard NG). i have to guess that our university pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for this service and this is what are students are getting in return? seriously? i am appalled that this is even acceptable. perhaps we received a big discount to upgrade early, but if we paid to be the beta testers then someone at my university should be fired. beta testing a buggy system should not be a part of the learning experience; beta testing is for software developers and volunteers. student’s grades should not be affected by the tools we use to deliver an assessment. EVER. and beyond this one issue, more than 40% of my students noted that they had, “other problems on the midterm because of Blackboard.” i’d be disappointed in the product if a few students had issues caused by Blackboard, but this is nearly every student in my classes.

that being said, i don’t use Blackboard for anything beyond administering exams and keeping grades in the grade book so that the university is responsible for that sensitive data. but i think i’ll look at using Moodle exclusively for this stuff next semester.