At Marshall and other institutions everything is data driven.
We use that information so that we can improve continuously and find ways to enhance our
teaching learning environment.
We use a lot of blackboard data and reports in order to create better courses by seeing
what students are engaging with, by seeing how long students are engaging with something
that is on the court.
It's extremely helpful to have blackboard tools that show us student behaviors, especially
those students who might be at risk when we have any kind of analytics.
Then we're able to see where we have some issues.
Um, we can target remediation, we can target other efforts to assist with retention.
We see student activity through the blackboard analytics tool and we can identify those students
who might be at risk for various types of issues, whether it be grade related or perhaps
they're not logging in as frequently as they should or there are other indirect indicators
that we can see through that system that help us kind of identify weaknesses or little areas
where we can work with faculty or work with the other individuals on campus who play a
role in that entire environment.
We use blackboard products to promote academic honesty in a way that is just seamless with
the rest of the course.
These are tools that are already built into blackboard
so we don't have to pay another vendor and exorbitant fee that goes up every year.
Blackboard offers these services that we have for you already built in so that we can help
with academic integrity and academic honesty.
I also use the safe assign a function in blackboard so that for assignments, longer papers and
writing assignments, the students have the ability to check what kind of problematic
areas may exist within their paper.
With respects to plagiarism.
The student has the opportunity to make corrections to their paper, allowing a better learning
experience, and then they could submit a final paper that's void of any problematic passages
or plagiarism.
It's a lot of them go into a class thinking they understand what plagiarism is or what
it is not, but then using safe assign, they're better able to assess what what problematic
you know, text may look like, so with the highlighted passages and safe assign, you
know they're able better able to discern where the paper may need adjusting.
Having blackboard analysis of practically everything that
happens with within the system is very helpful for us to make informed decisions, especially
when we're expending state funds and state resources that are extremely precious and
an environment of shrinking budgets.
Board has got the reporting down to where it streamlined.
We can check if you just want to check one reader, if you want to check one, one location,
one meal plan or anything like that.
You can do all that at one time through the reporting system, which streamlines it down.
It makes it easy for everybody to use.
One of the more common examples of using our emergency notification system through blackboard
is the campus closings during inclement weather, using the blackboard, we can quickly get the
word out to students, faculty and staff also for those other more serious situations where
there may be a public safety issue.
Local law enforcement is in pursuit of something and letting folks know due to the campus proximity
to the city, what's what's going on.
Blackboard helps us keep up with student expectations by meeting them where they are.
I'm a full time student and I have two jobs.
The mobile standpoint of blackboard, you know, knowing when my assignments are due, knowing
when I should turn something in, getting notifications for those assignments when they're supposed
to be due.
That's very helpful to me just because I'm always ripping and running so and obviously
I was on my phone on me so when I get that notification I'm like okay, I need to make
time to do this because you know it is coming up with our card systems that we have with
the accounts, with the mobile apps, with all that.
That is what the convenience that the students are looking for, that's all that's all the
students want.
They want the ease and convenience of a card with board helping us.
We've been able to set up all that whiteboard, allows us to reach students who again, are
working.
Most students, especially in this area, cannot afford to attend school without working.
And our students are working two and three jobs.
They have other responsibilities.
We can allow students have access to education through blackboard, um, that they wouldn't
otherwise have access to.
We started to see a decline in our enrollment in the traditional brick and mortar classroom
for our graduate program.
So blackboard helped us in increasing our enrollment by offering our program to a wider
audience as well as to working professionals.
We weren't reaching a lot of the practitioners such as probation officers, law officers,
or corrections officers who have a full time job.
We've doubled our enrollment and we project or at least hope to triple our enrollment.
Um, within the next couple of years.
Blackboard helps drive student success at Marshall by offering a wide variety of ways
for us to reach our students and for faculty to reach out to those students.
Everything that we do is driven by student success.
Every decision that we make in online learning and that our university is what's gonna be
best for the student.