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Living on the Cutting Edge Client Perspectives of Beta & Early Release Programs

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Client Perspectives of Beta & Early Release Programs. Living on the Cutting Edge. Session Focus. Educate – Who are we? Seneca College Kettering University ROC Midden Nederland Salzburg University Innovate – What are we doing? Beta Partners Product Development Partners - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Living on the Cutting Edge

Living on the Cutting EdgeClient Perspectives of Beta & Early Release

Programs

Page 2: Living on the Cutting Edge

Session Focus• Educate – Who are we?

– Seneca College– Kettering University– ROC Midden Nederland– Salzburg University

• Innovate – What are we doing?– Beta Partners– Product Development Partners

• Everywhere – Where are we & What have we learned?– US, Netherlands, Canada, Austria– Benefits outweigh the risk of Beta Testing

Page 3: Living on the Cutting Edge

About Seneca

• Toronto Area - Nine Locations– Newnham– Seneca@York– King– Markham

Page 4: Living on the Cutting Edge

About Seneca

• Seneca Student Profile– Full-time students 20,000– Part-time students 90,000– More than 45,000

full-time and part-time students pass through Seneca’s campuses each week

Page 5: Living on the Cutting Edge

About Seneca

• My.Seneca Facts– Every course has web support

• 25,006 course shells(4 semesters)

– Every Student has a personalized My.Seneca• 68,326 Student accounts

– Every Faculty has a personalized My.Seneca• 3,627 Faculty accounts

– My.Seneca server• Over 1 million hits per day

Page 6: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Seneca

• Seneca was a Beta test site for:– Blackboard Release 6.0– Application Pack 6.1– Application Pack 6.2– Application Pack 6.3– Blackboard Release 7.0– Application Pack 7.1

Page 7: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Seneca

• Why Beta Test?– Seneca’s vision is to lead in

• In Innovation……– by developing a culture that encourages risk-

taking, entrepreneurship, flexibility, and by embracing change in the interest of organizational effectiveness

– Access to latest and greatest product functionality

– Ability to bring recommendations to Bb Development

Page 8: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Seneca

• What Skills & Resources are needed?– Risk Management– Good Documentation & Support– Dedicated group of users wanting to

participate– Ability to ‘think outside the box’– Duplicate production environment– People Time

Page 9: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Seneca• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

– Blackboard Release 6 (6.0)• Good - Portal Improvements were great.• Bad – Building Blocks had to be rewritten• Ugly- Migration of Production System

– Application Pack 1 (Bb 6.1)• Good – Content System, Text Box Editor,

Fixes for Migration Issues• Bad – Course Copy Process duplicated

content items

Page 10: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Seneca• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

– Application Pack 2 (Bb 6.2)• Good – Multiple Roles, Unlimited Institution

Roles• Bad – Email Problems – Bad Addresses

– Application Pack 3 (Bb 6.3)• Good – Survey & Assessment Question

Types, Adaptive Release• Bad – Timing of Release, Amount of

Documentation Required for users, Adaptive Release Rules don’t copy

Page 11: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Seneca• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

– Blackboard Release 7 (Bb 7.0)• Good – Language Packs (ability to change

labels not just language)• Bad – Time requirement for Database

conversion

– Application Pack 1 (Bb 7.1)• Good – Discussion Board Changes, Cross

Browser VTBE, Beta Communication Processes

• Bad – Documentation Requirements & Timing of Release

Page 12: Living on the Cutting Edge

About Kettering• Private engineering and business school in Flint MI

• Formerly GMI Institute of Engineering & Management (GM-owned from 1919-1982)

• 2,500 undergraduates

• 1,200 graduates

• Two sections of undergraduates

• Distance Learning graduate students

• Fully co-op school

Page 13: Living on the Cutting Edge

About Kettering• March 2000 - Blackboard (Basic) purchased

• Fall 2000 - first online classes run

• July 2001 - Blackboard system administrator hired

• July 2002 - Enterprise implemented

• October 2004 - Content System added

• Today - more than 150 courses have an online component

• 200+ organizations

Page 14: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Kettering

• Kettering was a Beta test site for:– Application Pack 6.3– Application Pack 7.1

Page 15: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Kettering

• Why Beta Test?– Kettering's mission is to educate technical

leaders of the world so the university needs to be on the cutting edge

– System administrator is a risk-taker– Get the latest and greatest before others

(the-more-toys-you-have syndrome)

Page 16: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Kettering

• What Skills & Resources are needed?– Troubleshooting skills, e.g. steps for

replication, patterns of behavior, viewing problems from all angles, etc.

– Ability to be creative – when bugs are found are there ways around them?

– Being vigilant (a constant eye on everything)

– Hardware (production, testing, development)

Page 17: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Kettering• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

– Application Pack 3 (Bb 6.3)• Good – adaptive release before start of school

year in July meant I could set up software licensing courses and train Helpdesk staff for Blackboard support

• Bad – zip files for assignment downloads did not work for files with spaces in file name

Page 18: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Kettering• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

– Application Pack 1 (Rel 7.1)• Good – discussion board upgrade will benefit

our distant learning courses, new domain capabilities mean sharing Blackboard administration with others

• Bad – first beta releases were out when I was attempting to install new hardware for production environment, bb-config.properties can not have IP address for database – must have full machine and domain names

Page 19: Living on the Cutting Edge

About ROC Midden Nederland• Centre of the Netherlands– 45 locations

Page 20: Living on the Cutting Edge

About ROC Midden Nederland• Senior Vocational training• 6 sectors:– Technology– Health and welfare– Economics– Tourism– Adult Education (f.i. Dutch as second

language)

– Contract training

Page 21: Living on the Cutting Edge

About ROC Midden Nederland• Senior Vocational

training• 4 levels:– Level 1: Assistant– Level 2: Basic trade

practitioner– Level 3: Trade professional– Level 4: Middle management /

Specialist

• Age 16 - …..

Page 22: Living on the Cutting Edge

About ROC Midden Nederland

• 11,175 full time students

• 13,650 part-time students

• staff: 2500 (1711 FTE)

Page 23: Living on the Cutting Edge

About ROC Midden Nederland• Dec 2000 - Blackboard (Basic) purchased

• Feb 2004 – Bb Enterprise installed

• Feb – July 2004 - migration Bb basic 5.5 and Bb basic 5.7 ML into one Bb enterprise

• October 2004 - Content System added

Page 24: Living on the Cutting Edge

About ROC Midden Nederlandtoday:

• 1000 + courses• 250+ organizations• 1500 Content System users• 3 sectors have their own portal in

Bb

Page 25: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ ROC MN• ROC Midden Nederland was a Beta test site

for:

– Application Pack 3– Version 7– Version 7.1

Page 26: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ ROC MN

• Why Beta Test?– Getting insight in the technology behind

Blackboard

– Some influence on product development

– The shift from traditional to competence based education creates a need for new tools and features:

We want to use these tools and features as soon as possible for optimal support of the educational process.

Page 27: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ ROC MN• What Skills & Resources are needed?

– investigate problems analytically – creativity in finding workarounds for problems

that are not directly solved – testing from an technical but also educational

point of view – good knowledge of the way new features and

tools wil be used – enthusiasm to try, test and report – time and equipment (test server) for testing

Page 28: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ ROC MN

• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly– Application Pack 3

• Good – finally a complete Dutch version, release just before summer break gave instructors and TA more time to experiment with all new possibilities.

• Bad – problems with multilanguage functionality (how to convince Bb they really had a problem?)

Page 29: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ ROC MN

• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly– Version 7

• Good – language pack editor, better email functionality (although we lost our tweaks).

• Bad – little exchange of experiences between beta testers, testperiod during our summer holidays,late release of SP for problems that were already solved in 6.3

Page 30: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ ROC MN

• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly– Application Pack 1 (Bb 7.1)

• Good - discussionboard, self defined new system roles, working with domains for system management,very good communication with other beta testers and Blackboard

• Bad - almost no development in CS and integration with LS

Page 31: Living on the Cutting Edge

About Salzburg

• Traditional Medium Size University:– 11.400 Students– 1.040 Faculty staff– 4 Schools (Theology, Law, Natural

Science, Arts & Humanities)

• Advantage of location:– Situated between Vienna and Munich– Strategy meets the needs of the

University

Page 32: Living on the Cutting Edge

About Salzburg

• Center for Flexible Learning – ZFL:– Centralized service & support structure

tasks: Service and elaboration of strategies

– Directly responsible to the vice rector for education

– Since 2001: working with Blackboard (Blackboard learning and community system)

– Since 2006: additional license for „Bildungsregion“ (Blackboard basic system)

Page 33: Living on the Cutting Edge

About Salzburg

• Every-day-use of Blackboard:– 7.000 Students (out of 11.400)– 840 Instructors (including freelancers)– 535 Blackboard backed courses in winter

term 2005/2006– = 23% portion of all lectures being held at

the Salzburg University

Page 34: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Salzburg

• Salzburg University was a Beta test site for:– Application Pack 3– Version 7– Version 7.1

Page 35: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Salzburg

• Why Beta Test?– to get new product features as soon as

possible– to „act“ instead of „react“

Page 36: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Salzburg

• What Skills & Resources are needed?– Source Control/Bug Tracking Skills– Hardware: additional server for a real life

capable test environment– active Beta group (providing feedback):

Page 37: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Salzburg

• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly– Application Pack 3

• Good – adaptive release• Bad – problems with zip files

Page 38: Living on the Cutting Edge

Beta Testing @ Salzburg

• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly– Version 7

• Good – better performance (faster!)

• Bad – German characters are not supported in some parts, e.g. assessment

Page 39: Living on the Cutting Edge

Get Involved In…

• Blackboard’s Development Process– Product Strategy– Blackboard Idea Exchange– Product Development Partners– Beta Partners– Early Release Partners– General Availability

Page 40: Living on the Cutting Edge

Questions/Comments

Thank You!!JoAnna Hunt – Seneca College[[email protected]]

Donna Wicks – Kettering University[[email protected]]

Henk van Rijssen – ROC Midden Nederland[[email protected]]

Richard Posch – Salzburg University - ZFL [[email protected]]