Announcing the Arrival of Blackboard 8

by Kathleen McCoy  |   

Have you heard about the great improvements in Blackboard 8 and wondered when UAA would upgrade? Information Technology Services (ITS)  announces that UAA will be upgrading to Blackboard 8 over the winter break--just in time for the start of the Spring Term.

What does this mean for you? The current Blackboard service will be unavailable from Jan. 3-4, 2009. Blackboard 8 will be available beginning Jan. 5, 2009.

We intend to make this a seamless transition for faculty. ITS has contracted with Blackboard Inc. Professional Services to provide expertise as we transfer all classes, content, and enrollments to Blackboard 8. This means that the work you are currently doing within your Spring Term course shells will be transferred to the new service. Your old courses with all their content will be moved there as well.

While there are a number of minor modifications within Blackboard 8, the two main changes are associated with the Gradebook and Discussion Boards. Other features have seen small improvements and enhancements that we think you'll find useful as well. Because of these changes, ITS is working to:

  • develop documentation and tutorials to help faculty with the upgrade
  • offer "What's New in Blackboard 8" sessions in Dec. 2008
  • provide tools based faculty workshops in Jan. 2009

There do not appear to be any major changes in the student experience within Blackboard 8.

How can you find out more?
If you have any questions or would like to inquire about faculty workshop opportunities, please call the IT Call Center at (907) 786-4646 or Toll Free (877) 633-3888 and select Option 4 for the IT Services Faculty Technology Center to talk to one of the instructional designers in the eMedia group.

Look for further updates about the Blackboard 8 Upgrade to arrive via the Faculty Listserv. If you do not currently subscribe to the listserv, you can sign-up here.

This is an exciting time and we believe you will find the upgrades within Blackboard 8 a great improvement over the current version.

Creative Commons License "Announcing the Arrival of Blackboard 8" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Recommended Stories