Merger of companies, now merger of software

Blackboard presented their plan and timeline for the next generation of products. All current uses will have one more upgrade offered this summer - Bb 8.0 (for everyone including WebCT clients) and then a roll out of Bb9.0 January 2009. Bb 9.0 will be a next generation product, comlpetely redesigned to pull the webCT and Bb users together in to a single platform.

Demonstrations of live systems at European conference, Manchester May 08, launch at Las Vegas conference, summer 08, live demonstrations at Durham December 2008. Release Jan 09.

Bb8.0

Intermediate step to the next generation platform. will include:

• new look gradebook - more along the lines of the next gen products - cells you can type in instead of pulling out to separate pages
• self and peer assessment tool (from Dundee)
• safeassign included without having to install it (oh dear)

Bb9.0

New user interface - sections that can be dragged and ddropped around on the page, different pane for editing and viewing.

engagement

• bought a communications company, so looking at provision of bulk SMS< email and voice messages through Bb
• page shown with wiki and chat in one area - very much the look of learning objects!
• iGoogle integration
• facebook integration
• RSS

assessment

• instructor and student dashboard - shows you what is new, who is late, who has submitted work,
• assignment tool redesigned to match more clearly to learning outcomes, can deploy rubrics for marking
• portfolio - new system taking best of all three available systems, launch later than Bb 9.0

Openess

• APIs opened up
• enable multiple platforms to run together - moodle and sakai can be added seemlessly (single sign on) and with access to course documents across both
• iPhone interface, othe mobile devices in planning