How and when will the upgrade affect me?
This page will detail the various opportunities and ways in which the upgrade project will affect you, and when that is likely to be.
Who are you?
I am…
…a member of staff
…a student
You’ll start to see this upgrade being advertised around campus over the next few months. You’ll be invited to answer questions about your current views on u-Link, and online learning, in a survey we’ll tell you about soon.
Depending on the plans that develop, you may find your tutors telling you about the new system some time next year. We expect all students to be using the new system in September 2012 – the change will not be difficult, and you’ll probably find you prefer the new system. Our Learning Technology Team will carry on doing their excellent job of providing support and running drop-in sessions for students who need help using the VLE. You’ll be able to get in touch with them to provide any feedback about the new system when it’s in place.
…an academic
All the academic Schools at Brunel are represented across our project teams and project board, so you can feel confident that the u-Link issues that affect you, or things you’d like to see in the new VLE, are being discussed. Over the next few months, we will be running ‘roadshows’ with groups of academics, showing you some of Blackboard Learn’s capabilities. At these sessions, we will also give staff the chance to test the new system themselves. Online versions of these roadshows will be made available.
Then, once the academic year starts, we will begin a brand new training program to actually take you through the process of using the new system, before it is finally put in place in September 2012.
You may choose to start modules from scratch, but we appreciate how busy you are – so do Blackboard. That’s why they provide tools to migrate sections over quickly and easily, meaning you can get started using the new features with your existing content!
…a member of staff
If you are a member of staff who makes use of u-Link, or would like to start using a VLE, then you too will be offered training with the new system. Over the next few months, we’ll be running ‘roadshows’ across the central services (at the Library, for example, and Brunel International) to start promoting awareness of Blackboard Learn’s new features. A more comprehensive training programme will be put into place next year.
Blackboard provide options to easily migrate existing content – if you are feeling adventurous, however, you could begin new sections from scratch. It is up to you and your colleagues – but rest assured we will be setting up events, and providing plenty of online updates, to deal with your questions and concerns.
How do you port over existing courses that were in version 8.0.475.0 to Blackboard Learn? I have some detailed course designs with submissions, course work, gradebooks as well as lots of available content. So far I haven’t been able to import my packaged classes with success. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Lucilla – we’re migrating from Vista to Learn, so it’s a different process with different results. I can only tell you what I know, which is that whatever version you’re moving from/to, there is some ‘cleanup’ work involved. So you likely won’t see the work you’ve already done duplicated exactly. If it’s just one or a handful of courses you’re moving, you should be able to create a backup of your course and then import it into Learn. The best place to look for documentation on how to do this is to sign up at Behind the Blackboard and take a look there – lots of great info, so I’d definitely get an account if you don’t already have one. http://behind.blackboard.com. Sorry I couldn’t help more!