Last Spring, we announced UTA’s campus-wide adoption of the Blackboard learning management system. When the transition is complete, Blackboard will replace our aging installation of WebCT, affording faculty members and students state of the art tools for online teaching, learning, and retention. Blackboard has been pilot tested by a group of UTA faculty during the most recent Summer and Fall semesters.
Full campus migration from WebCT to Blackboard is set for the Spring 2011 semester. Faculty may continue to utilize WebCT through December 2010, and will work with the Center for Distance Education on course migrations. Faculty members will have the option of migrating existing WebCT courses to Blackboard or creating a Blackboard class from scratch. See the instructions for beginning this process.
A full schedule for faculty training on the Blackboard system will also be offered this Fall, and a calendar of these sessions is available on the Training page.
Blackboard integration will involve departmental participation from an administrative perspective. Access to official Blackboard courses for the Spring and subsequent semesters is dependent upon faculty/TA assignments made by the academic department in MyMav. They typically need access to their online courses several months in advance of the semester start. Faculty/TAs attending training without an assignment in MyMav will train and work only in temporary courses.
Questions about this campus-wide transition can be directed to Jenny Jopling (jenny@uta.edu), Director, Center for Distance Education.
Faculty are invited to attend the Blackboard Support and Training Webinar, hosted weekly on Thursdays at 10:00 AM CDT. This webinar is open for technical questions, instructional assistance and general discussion about Blackboard. This webinar is hosted in Adobe Connect. You will need at least a set of speakers; you may use a microphone or webcam but they are not required. Text chat is available.
Meeting URL: http://univoftexas.acrobat.com/r48245669/
