Blackboard Faculty Updates – Fall 2018
Welcome back, Blackboard Faculty! Here are just a couple of announcements and reminders from Learning Systems for Fall 2018. We wish you much success and we’re always here to help: elearning@vcu.edu
Blackboard upgrade completed in Spring 2018
Blackboard was upgraded to 9.1 Q4 2017 back in May and here’s the rundown of all the new features and enhancements.
Top Hat
Top Hat is our new centrally-supported student response system. The new SRS offers more in-class engagement possibilities with students, where they can use the devices they’re already bringing to class! Top Hat integrates with Blackboard and offers assessment features giving you two-way feedback on the effectiveness of your teaching and the extent to which students are learning.
Latest Kaltura updates
Improvements in accessibility, in-video quizzing, online video editing, and a user interface refresh has allowed the VCU community to enjoy ease-of-use improvements to their favorite video management platform!
House Bill 1 Updates
The legalese and explanation can be found below. If you have questions about how this affects your student’s experience in Blackboard, please have a look at the FAQ.
Virginia House Bill 1 (HB1), effective July 1 as Code of Virginia section 23.1-405(C), prohibits a university from disclosing a student’s email address, physical address or telephone number under the exception in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) for directory information or the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) unless the student has affirmatively consented in writing to the disclosure.
Organization Archival
Learning Systems will continue the cleanup of old organizations we’ve determined as “inactive” — organizations that haven’t been accessed within the last 3 years. For our next iteration of archivals, we’ll be looking at organizations from May 1, 2015 and prior years. The next set of organizations will be made unavailable on September 15th, 2018 and eventually archived based on the guidelines in our published policy. Detailed information can be found on the Blackboard Organization retention policy page here.
Thank you!
Categories Bb News, Bb9 upgrade, Beginning of Semester, Blackboard Notice, Faculty