Our goal is to be an innovator in online education.
I think that the online environment has evolved a lot.
My goal with blackboard and that partnership is to create that environment where the student
feels like he's part of the community.
He's part of Stetson and his goals are met with our faculty.
When I arrived to Stetson, there were several learning management systems in place and we
evaluated the different features of each one of them and we decided to go with a standard
learning management system.
We really needed to get everybody using the same technology.
We're looking for several things.
You are looking for flexibility.
We're looking for expandability and we're looking for an environment where it's user
friendly for both the faculty and the student.
Stetson University chose to move forward with the ultra experience because
it is one of the university's missions to become leaders in technical innovation.
The one stetson and the one Blackboard fit perfectly together because it's in perfect
alignment with our mission.
I guess part of human nature and were all reluctant to change, but with those
changes also come opportunities.
The partnership with blackboard or allow us to create a learning environment where the
students can focus on learning, faculty can focus on teaching
At its basic level, moving to sas and ultra has greatly improved the student
and faculty teaching experience and it is fully improved my team's ability to support
it,
upgrade to the SAS environment and the ultra based navigation has allowed
us to be very considerate of our faculty's needs and where some may be hesitant for the
change.
It worked out well because we were able to gradually introduce this to them in different
steps.
With the ultra experience it's got that modern, sleek, warm interface.
I like to call it warm because it's.
I don't shy away from it and most of my faculty members and students don't shy away from it
I will openly admit that I was a little resistant at first or even hesitate.
Right?
Just because the change, it's kind of like, oh, another thing you have to learn and do,
and especially in the line of work, I am just so busy, but I was very, very pleasantly surprised
by the ultra experience.
To be honest.
I've been able to use it in a kind of multidimensional ways to enrich my teaching, but most importantly
to impact my students learning
In terms of the change to the Ultra experience.
I think one of the things that was most obvious to me is the change was very easy.
So many times with a software interface change like that there's a real learning curve to
that.
Now, what I found with the ultra that there was almost no learning curve.
Seeing that new interface makes my life a lot better.
Blackboard has been able to free up my time to do just that.
I can focus on what's important.
Then I can focus on, on teaching them.
I can focus on our interactions and all that, Um, administrative work, I leave it to Blackboard.
The Ultra experience helped in a way that it saves time, so it's more efficient.
Students love the ultra experience.
They're super excited about it because it is so modern and sleek looking.
It has more of an APP like field.
I believe that because it's easier for them to navigate the new, uh, ultra
experience that they are participating in class more.
I love how the ultra experience is more user friendly to people.
I feel like my grandma will be able to use it now.
It's more like everything streamlined and looks nice.
I have a quiz every class I know that oftentimes they take it on a mobile device
typically right before class, but they take it and it works.
It works phenomenally.
So it's easy to go on a cell phone.
When I'm traveling.
It's easy to use it on a tablet or computer, laptop.
Rajni: 04:06 It allows for them to integrate learning into their very active and busy lifestyles
and very meaningful ways.
I personally have enjoyed as somebody who travels a lot in the work that I do.
I really have appreciated that the ultra is more mobile friendly.
The time was right to move to sas.
We needed to use our resources in a more efficient manner.
The idea of moving to sas, SAS would just eliminate so many of Stetsons resources and
put the onus of keeping the system up and running on Blackboard and it's so nice to
just get emails saying, okay, this update is going to happen next.
You don't have to do anything, we're just telling you, you might want to put a system
notice up, but we're taking care of everything.
So for us was the right time to move into a software as a service environment
because he didn't tie us into hardware and it was also a good return on investment.
The ultra experience has it where when you're making a decent grade in the class,
like above average grade, it'll tell you and like give you that, that like pep pep talk
and it will say you're doing a great in this class.
Tutor somebody or yeah.
And then it also tell you if you're not doing so hot and then it will ask you.
Okay.
So you should ask for someone to like help help you in this class because you're, you're
not doing so hot.
So like it kind of like keeps up with you and like gives you motivation to, to do better
or it tells you, oh you're doing really great.
So that's probably my favorite features.
Yeah, it helps you keep track of your dates and assignments and helped you
contact your teachers more easily and effectively.
The ultra experience really just brings everything together.
I recently downloaded the blackboard app and it's probably one of the best decisions
I've made this year.
It helps me keep track of all my assignments so I know when they're due and when I get
a good grade or bad grade I can see like what I got like almost immediately.
Blackboard has been with us right from the beginning.
Our latest partnership with Blackboard is that we're starting our blackboard 24/seven
help desk and that has been fantastic.
That implementation is going so smoothly.
Were selecting a partner, someone that has gone on to help us introduce a new
solution into our environment is someone that is going to be there for the long run.
We're not looking for someone that is going to sell a solution and then it's gonna disappear.
Stetson University has benefited from the partnership with Blackboard because we finally
found a partner that he was willing to listen to our needs.
At the end of the day, what I value most about our partnership with Blackboard
is the reliability of their team when things go well and when things don't go well, that
is something that I value because you've worked with vendors and they're like, oh yeah, I'll
get back to you and, and, and they don't care.
And I'm like freaking out because something really important is broken.
But when I call Blackboard, if they don't know what's going on, they really understand
that this is some, you know, important stuff that needs to get attended to right away.
And I think that that's a value that isn't often found in, in many businesses these days.
So yeah, I like that.
I value that.
Blackboard has the experience to support its existing technology as well as kind of push
everybody towards the next best thing.
I'm surprisingly excited, um, because I didn't think I would be in a position to start offering
this level, to me it's the next level of innovation.
Um, but to know that I have some faculty members that are, that are excited about that, I'm
going to go with it and I'm going to see where it takes us.