Course Resources Upgrade 2013

As part of the annual maintenance and upgrade program, LEI's Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team are working in conjunction with ITS to upgrade the University's Course Resources this summer, in order to provide an enhanced suite of teaching and learning tools for students, academics and support staff in time for the start of the 2013/14 academic year.

The upgrade is planned to take place between 0000hrs on Sunday 30th June and 0700hrs on Wednesday 3rd July 2013, and will provide an opportunity to further refine existing functionality and introduce significant improvements to the Course Resources platform.

Details of the key changes that will be available to all users at the University of Derby are listed below, together with relevant video links:

• New Content Editor - The new Content Editor vastly improves the user experience for entering text, pasting content from Microsoft Word, and adding content to all areas of Blackboard Learn.
• Discussions - Discussion have been updated in two ways: the thread detail page has been redesigned but still maintains current functionality and instructors can now require student's first post to a forum before they can view other posts.
• Assignment Handler - The current assignment system has been upgraded to allow tutors can now view submitted assignments directly in a web browser. Annotation tools also enable tutors to provide feedback via comments, highlights, and drawings; directly on the web browser view of the assignment.
• Calendar - The new Calendar feature allows academics and students to view institution level, course and personal events in a single calendar view.
• Computer Aided Tests - A range of new features has been added to the computer aided test functionality including the ability of tests to be evaluated by the quality and validity of each question and improved refinement of question creation.
• Retention Centre - As a replacement for the Early Warning System, the Retention Centre provides an easy-to-use and visually enhanced opportunity for identifying at-risk students in a course.

Note #1: The new Social Media functionality is not currently considered to be mature enough to support all of our students' and consequently will not be immediately adopted as part of this upgrade.

Note #2: TEL will inform users of additional features that the University will adopt once appropriate testing and guidance has been established.

As a user of the University's Course Resources, we feel that it is important to communicate these changes to you directly, so that as champions of the University's Course Resources, you are aware of the forthcoming changes, the impact they will have on users; experienced and beginner alike, and to provide LEI-Tel and ITS with relevant feedback from your peers and colleagues.

In order to aid these forthcoming improvements, TEL will provide a range of support information which will allow all users to become familiar with the key changes in time for the start of the new academic year. In addition, TEL's Learning Technology scheduled drop-in support facility will provide opportunities for staff to become familiar with the latest changes through the support of a dedicated Learning Technology Advisor

If you have any queries regarding the forthcoming upgrade to Course Resources, then please do not hesitate to contact the following staff within TEL:

Sarah Horrigan
Senior Learning Technology Adviser
Ext. 1390

Lawrie Peck
Senior Learning Systems and Resources Advisor
Ext. 2209