In my undergraduate work we used the blackboard system. Currently, in my masters program we are using a platform called eCollege. I think I like it better than blackboard. I was just wondering how many platforms there are, and which do you think are the best? I'm just curious.
I'm using the WebMentor program. It seems pretty basic but as this is a first for me I don't really have a standard of comparison. So far there have been no difficulties and I have no complaints. Jack
The EBS MBA is delivered on Blackboard. I have heard no complaints about Blackboard and when I use the faculty web board to respond to student questions it is easy to use. After a while we 'clean' the web board by moving useful Qs and As to the FAQ board and deleting the rest. It also has a PDF/HTML version of the course texts (published by Pearson Education), one exactly as it appears in the print and the other which can be interrogated. There are other buttons for all past exams in all subjects, with the faculty answer and for each paper a 'good student' answer taken from the examination. Another button provides more cases, essays and exercises for student practice and the in-built feedback on the student's 'self-assessed' performance using our 'Profiler' software. These grade the performance against the concepts used in the answers, as appilied to business problems. Of course, no grades contribute to the final written examinations' scores. I cannot sya whether Blackboard is better or worse than the others platforms because I do not know them. Certainly, for our 8,000 plus Distance Learning (NOT Distance Teaching!) students Blackboard works well.
In my work for the Army we are using Web CT for most of our distance-based training programs. Reviews seem to be positive. Cheers, Tony
I have used BlackBoard and some other system of which I don't know the name. It might be a homemade one for all I know. But both seem to work just fine for me. clint
Blackboard and WebCT are, by a pretty good margin, the most widely used course management systems for online courses (and for courses where part of the content is online). eCollege would be #3. There is a new non-proprietary course management system called Moodle can looks promising (especially as Blackboard and WebCT continue to get more and more expensive). Tony Pina Northeastern Illinois University
In Hong Kong, WebCT is the market leader . WebCT is also used in where I am studying now, Imperial College London. WebCT has two editions, one is Campus Edition, which is simpler and cheaper, while Vista is designed as an enterprise system.
I don't know many systems but IMO, Blackboard is a really poor one. If you search the web for "proboards" you will find a forum model that is much more user friendly than the Blackboard system, can be set in half an hour and it is free. Not to say that it has anything to do with the quality of the universities using it. But it is not the most practical (and very ugly, BTW )
A number of colleges and universities have chosen Blackboard over WebCT, because it is supposedly easier for novice faculty to use. I have used both systems and find them fairly equal. I am going to be supervising my insitution's Blackboard operations. I would like to consider other alternatives, since Blackboard and WebCT are quite limiting, but it would not be politically correct for the "new kid" to suggst scrapping the system. Tony Pina Northeastern Illinois University
Hi, What sort of features you would look for in Bb or WebCT that you think they are limited? WebCT is aiming at a more "Enterprise" direction. Bb is rather simple with many of their templates are fixed but they lack the sense of academic enterprise if you are trying to view it from an organisational point of view and would like to implement a large scale e-learning system. BTW, WebCT got a number of powerlink partners. They have solutions from plagarism to video streaming. I think one of them would suit your needs.
I think that Blackboard and WebCT are about the same, too. TESC uses Blackboard for their -OL (online) courses, and Brandeis University's Rabb School uses WebCT. (Incidentally, I believe Brandeis's Master of Software Engineering program, which has optional Management and E-Commerce concentrations, just became completely DL'able very recently.) By the way, does anyone know which DL programs uses video streaming? I've found that a good lecturer can really add a lot to a course, but it's not something that you see at Brandeis University or TESC, although Harvard University's Extension School uses it a lot.
DL Platforms I've worked extensively with WebCT and BlackBoard. When I look at textbook publisher offerings these are two most commonly supported platforms. I see the two as being very similar. Any feature that one gets, the other will copy soon. There are other players - eCollege is one of the better known. As for video steaming, my school (Kettering University) uses this technology extensively in our MS in Manufacturing Management, Opperations Management and Manufacturing Operations. It works fairly well. We deliver video via the web as well as CD and VHS. Another upcoming platform for DL is open source. University of Michigan, MIT and some other schools are building CTOOLS based on the "SAKAI" open source initiative. Regards - Andy
TescStudent, Capitol College use web streaming and a simplified VoIP (headset or microphone-speaker) for interactive discussion. Unfortunately to interact you must meet the synchronous schedule, however the classes are available asynchronous if you miss the live version. Northcentral uses interactive web for PhD programs once you reach candidacy. (Netmeeting) Regards,
Streaming video Thank you guys. I think that more schools ought to use streaming video to deliver lectures. I like DL lectures even better than B&M lectures - I can watch them multiple times, pause them while I take notes, burn the audio to MP3 and play them in my car, etc.
What must be the largest online university in the U.S., the University of Phoenix, uses....Outlook Express! All instruction is delievered using regular old newsgroups. More than 100,000 students taking their courses by communicating with their instructors and collaborating with their peers (on learning teams) using newsgroups. It's like sucking an elephant through a straw. I know why UoP does it. They've evolved around it and it would be painful--and expensive--to switch. But I don't understand why UoP doesn't take the lead in this market and develop its own delivery system, brand it, and then sell it to others. I would imagine it could get its considerable captal heft behind a development effort that would produce quite a product that, because of UoP's sheer size, would have an immediate and profound impact on the market.
I was just reading this week's BusinessWeek (the print version), and it has a two page article on the Blackboard software. It says that more than half of all US colleges use Blackboard. Some other interesting information: Blackboard raised $53 million in an IPO in June. Over 2000 schools use Blackboard. Blackboard's revenues last year were around $92 million. Blackboard lost $7.8 million last year, but hope to make a profit this year. Blackboard is increasingly targeting K-12 schools and foreign universities.
