Apologies for such a long gap since the last meeting but we now have a date for your diary: Friday 25^th Match at the University of Dundee.

The next meeting of Scot-BUG will take place on 23rd June 2010 at the University of Stirling.

The day will based around Learn 9.1 with planned presentations looking at the software from both a WebCT and Blackboard classic viewpoint. Adrian Powell from the University of Sheffield has confirmed and will be speaking about the recent procurement exercise at Sheffield.

The next Scot-BUG event is scheduled for Thursday 11 February 2010 at Edinburgh Napier University, Craighouse Campus.  It will include sessions on:

• Blackboard’s Assignment Handler
• Lecture capture
• Using mobile devices

In a first for Scot-BUG, the meeting will be available on-line.

The fourth meeting of Scot-BUG is scheduled for Friday 6th November at the University of Abertay. There will be sessions on:

• Google Wave from Martin Hawksey, JISC Regional Support Centre, Scotland North & East
• Atlantic Link’s (http://www.atlantic-link.co.uk/) collaborative rapid e-learning tools which ‘anyone who can use a computer can create stunning e-learning and unleash the knowledge locked within themselves and their organisations.’

Richard Burrows will start the day off by bringing us up-to-date with developments at Blackboard.

One of the liveliest groups at the St Andrews event addressed key functionality required for BB9.1 when it is released in late 2009. Our debate focussed on the functionality that was absolutely necessary for institutions to consider upgrading from WebCT to BB9.  After much heated discussion, the following were considered to be essential:

• A fully functioning Glossary as in WebCT;
• Options for Alternative Icon Sets – lack of customisation by tutors currently available in BB9 was a major issue for us all;
• Explicit Student View – for tutors to ‘check’ how students view modules;
• Increased roles available for participants in a module;
• A File Manager & WebDav as currently available in WebCT;
• Learning Modules as currently available in WebCT;
• Web Links Tool as currently available in WebCT.

There was also much debate about the lack of clarity in documentation produced by BlackBoard outlining the functionality Differences CE vs. Vista. In some instances, it was unclear about which versions of BlackBoard would have which functionality which severely impacted on testing the new product.  A quotation from one of the participants which summarized our discussions was “We would like enhanced WebCT not enhanced Blackboard.”

 A healthy discussion took place about training and the development of new training materials. The following points were raised:

• Develop different types of training materials
  • “beyond pdf” – screencasts, a series of on-line lessons
  • material to support migrated courses and also courses built from scratch
  • 15 minute guides
• A collaboration approach to creating training materials
  • institutional agreement re IPR/ownership and sharing of materials
  • creative commons for openess?
  • central repository with version control- hosted by RSC?
  • related best practice materials and case studies
• Student input – possibility of the creation of content by students and their assitance during training events
• Should we be developing digital literacy materials and programmes?
  • more generic materials, less specific to a VLE
  • less updating of materials when new versions of VLE come on-line
  • staff are educated in digital literacy rather than being trained in a particular piece of software – better approach?
• Can we change the free Blackboard training materials and make them freely available? – Representatives from Blackboard indicated that they were willing to discuss a proposal on this matter.

Please feel free to post your comments using the link below.

Steven Bruce & Raymond Moir

The general feeling from people who participated in the discussions at the Other Choices corner was that since Learn 9 will represent a big change, it is timely for institutions to review their needs and eLearning strategies and to consider what VLE/LMS/other mix of software would be best for the next ten years.  A key suggestion was that the Scot-BUG group should invite presentations from other vendors and, in the case of open source solutions, from staff at institutions where these have been adopted.

Please feel free to post your comments using the link below.

Joan Fisher

As outlined in the previous post, one of the themes which formed part of the discussion about the process of upgrading to Learn 9 was Infrastructure.  This did not receive a lot of interest on the day.  This may have been because of the audience and the fact that it is probably not the foremost element of the decision process.  However, it does need to be considered carefully, especially by customers currently using the Campus Edition or Vista products because Learn 9 is based on Tomcat technology (rather then WebLogic).  Some of the issues involved are:

• update to Tomcat 6 (which may have subtle implications especially for Building Block developers)
• supported combinations of application and database servers
• different port numbers used have implications for firewall settings
• changes to client requirements: supported browsers, versions of Java
• database size and file space requirements
• scripts for synchronising data with other systems

Blackboard has some useful documentation in the Reference Center and Knowledge Base (accessible from Behind the Blackboard) to get customers started with some of these issues; for example:

• Virtualizing the Blackboard Reference Architecture
• Sizing Guides for Dell and Sun hardware
• Optimizing Blackboard Learn Deployments
• Setup Guide
• Advanced Integration and Data Management
• Supported browser information

and also check out the webinars being run by the Bb 9 Upgrade Team.

If you have any comments, questions or issues to raise about this aspect of the Learn 9 upgrade decision process feel free to add a comment to this post or send me an email.  Scot-BUG plans to collate views from the community and pass them on to Blackboard to assist with their prioritisation and deployment processes.

Stephen Vickers

The third meeting of Scot-BUG is scheduled for Friday 12th June at St Andrews University.  There will be sessions on:

• BoB (Box of Broadcasts) with Luís Carrasqueiro, Deputy Chief Executive, British Universities Film & Video Council
• txttools an SMS solution that works with Blackboard and other applications with Barry Ferguson (regional sales team) and Steve Sidaway (Director)
• Stephen Vickers will give a talk on SpACE (Spatial Activities in Course Environments) which combines map data using Google Maps and Blackboard with related content and resources.

Richard Burrows will start the day off by bringing us up-to-date with developments at Blackboard and there will also be roundtable sessions before lunchtime on issues relating to upgrading to Learn 9.