BPP University College Virtual Learning News VLE related news and support for BPP University College staff

As previously advertised, we have now switched off Blackboard Scholar.  If you were using Scholar please contact Learning Technology if you need assistance on how to present that information/activities in different ways.

Explanation from Blackboard below:

Scholar Streams as content items will no longer function after Friday, January 13th, 2012 when Scholar reaches its end-of-life. These content items should be removed.

The Scholar product never achieved broad usage among clients. Client feedback indicated social bookmarking was too narrow of a social activity and difficult to integrate in instructional practices.

Based on the low usage of this solution, we feel our focus and development resources are better spent on other key areas of the application suite. Blackboard is fully committed to social learning and is working on several development projects that will improve the close connection and integration of social learning and the classroom. Blackboard learned important insights from Scholar.

These observations, among others, have informed the vision for social learning that Blackboard shared with our clients this past July at BbWorld 2011 in Las Vegas. (For more information on this vision, see the video of the BbWorld 2011 keynote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlGA9_p_–c ).

Enabling Blackboard students and faculty to connect with each other through Blackboard Learn and through other social media applications remains a key component of the Blackboard vision, and we look forward to sharing more with you about this in coming months.