Binghamton University upgraded to the newly released “Blackboard version 9” during the week of Aug. 17 to take advantage of new features, but what was expected to be an improvement has caused difficulty for many professors and students across campus.
The decision to switch to version 9 was based on the recommendation of the Blackboard advisory group, said James Wolf, director of Academic Services and Computing.
According to Wolf, students had stated that the old Blackboard’s interface was not as modern as other interactive online programs. The University then decided to make the switch at the end of the August summer session, during a six-week staff testing period.
The Blackboard 9 Web site boasts a wealth of innovation.
While on the site, Blackboard users can now drag and drop items on their screens, and updates are automatically saved.
“Blackboard Sync” is also a new feature, but it is not yet enabled. It will allow students to link their Facebook accounts with Blackboard when it is activated. The result will be Blackboard updates appearing in Facebook announcements, as well as on wireless mobile devices.
Despite the expected benefits, the software upgrade has led to multiple technical problems, which some professors say are giving them a hard time.
“The problem is that they installed a new version of Blackboard that is not working,” said Kenneth Christianson, lecturer of economics at BU and a Blackboard user since fall 2004. “For hours I could not get access to the page at all. Either it died or kicked me off. Then, yesterday, it showed up in Spanish.”
Besides the problems that professors are having with connecting and uploading course work, students are also facing difficulties with the site.
“It is really slow when I need to open files,” Sean Pascucci, a junior mathematics and economics major, said. “When you drop a class, it stays under your courses and you still get notifications for it. It takes forever to print things off of it.”
During the program switch in August, Associate Professor of physics Robert Pompi’s students tried to submit papers through the Digital Drop Box feature available on version 9, but this seemed to be an impossible feat.
“Having a new and improved tool isn’t always beneficial,” Pompi said. “I had a major problem with my summer program. Things became chaotic. The old system worked. The new system is slow. It breaks down. It doesn’t give you feedback if you do something wrong.”
The University’s support team is aware of the problems and has developed version 9 training videos that have been available since June.
“We are working with Blackboard,” said Wolf, who has used the online program as an instructor for physics courses. “We get support 24/7, 3-6-5. [Blackboard] found two distinct problems that were patched. Our role is to set up the data. Their job is to find out what in the system is not functioning the way it should.”
On Wednesday, Sept. 9, Vice President for Administration James Van Voorst issued a statement to all students and faculty detailing changes in Blackboard and what the University is doing to fix performance issues.
According to this e-mail, the University Center for Training and Development is providing Blackboard 9 workshops until Sept. 29, as well as offering instructional videos and documents on their Web site, training.binghamton.edu. A version 9 hotline was also established and will be available from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, for the next few weeks at (607) 743-9027.
The training sessions that have been available thus far have not been a relief for everyone.
“A number of us in the trenches don’t have time to get trained,” Pompi said. “I want something that is intuitively obvious.”
Pompi also said that it is invaluable that everyone has access to Blackboard files, especially in light of the new attendance policy created as a caution to prevent the spread of the H1N1 virus.
Despite the current problems, Wolf is confident the kinks will soon be worked out.
“We’ve seen incremental changes,” Wolf said. “Last Tuesday was much worse than last Friday.”
Along with BU, large schools such as Syracuse University and the University of Texas made the switch to version 9 of Blackboard, and according to Wolf they are doing well in their transition.