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Home > Public Services > Distance Learning > Blazeview Overview > New Features

BlazeVIEW: Why You’ll Love Your V8!
Coming Summer 2009

Improvements and new features:

User Interface Enhancements

With the significant enhancements to the user interface, faculty can accomplish key tasks in less time and fewer clicks than ever before — making it easier to create and manage their courses. For example, theenhancedinterface features consolidated toolbars and makes greater use of collapsible menus to improve navigation and increase the design space on the screen.The interfacealso now includes built-in interactive tutorials, as well as markers and pointers throughout the interface, to help new users get up to speed quickly.

Teaching and Learning Enhancements

It is now easier than ever for faculty to prepare, deliver, and manage their courses — ultimately improving the learning experience for students.

• New Quick Start Page for Course Set-up:Course preparation is now easier than ever. Faculty can use the Quick Start page as a launching pad to rapidly set-up their courses — quickly adding tools to get courses prepped and ready to teach.
• New Course Preview Area:ACourse Preview area providesthe flexibility to link to multiple web pages, allowing faculty to provide a preview of their course for public viewing.
• More Flexible Web Links:Previously called URLs, Web Links are now easier to manage. Whenever a web link is added to a course, it is automatically added to a comprehensive Web Links page, giving instructors and students a central place to easily access and review all web links used within a course.
• Web Links Categories:Instructors can now organize web links into categories for improved organization and presentation tostudents. In addition, instructors can optionally give students the ability to contribute their own annotatedweb links into a specific category, promoting greater student engagement and active learning.
• Media Library Enhancements:Media Libraryentries now display a thumbnail image if an image file is attached to the entry. In addition,workflow improvements have streamlined the process for adding entries and deleting multiple entries atonce. Instructors can optionally grant students the ability to contribute their own entries into a collection,promoting greater student engagement and active learning.Also, designers and instructors can now export and import Media Library entries. This includes all text entries and associated file attachments, such as images. If Designers and Instructors want to import Media Library entries that were not originally created using the Media Library tool, the entries must be stored in a CSV (comma separated value file), text file, or zip file.

• Additional Learning Module Options:Learning Modules used for presenting content in a pre-defined sequence can now be included on the course menu, making them accessible to students from anywhere in the course. If desired, the first page of a learning module can display the table of contents for that module. Designers have a choice of displaying elements within the module as numbered items or simply as a list.
• More Efficient Learning Module Editing:Designers can now quickly update all titles of the table of contents inside a learning module through asingle screen where they can edit each title efficiently. Items in the table of contents can be expanded orcollapsed for easier navigation.

• New Assessment Presentation Choices:Designers can determine whether they want an assessment to appear in the same window or to open in a new window when it is started. Designers can also determine whether or not they want students to be able to view quiz statistics.
• Assessments: Tailored Instructions and InstantFeedback:Designers and instructors can add their own custom quiz instructions to the top of an assessment,providing students with unique and tailored directions. If the assessment is delivered one question at atime, the instructor can choose to display the instructions only for the first question or for all subsequentquestions as students advance through the assessment. In addition, students taking a self test can nowreceive immediate feedback after answering a question without having to first complete the entire selftest.
• Assessments: Other Improvements:Some significant improvements have been made to theView Reportsoption in Assessment Manager:
• The user interface has been simplified to improve usability.
• The full set of statistics is now generated for surveys.
• The Performance and Item Statistics reports have been combined into a single Overall Statistics report, which instructors can view by student or by question. This report can be converted to a Printable Statistics View that includes a Grade Distribution Summary chart to give instructors more insight into student performance. In addition, instructors can now view the following from the Printable Statistics View:
• statistics for each answer set in a calculated question
• all student responses to a paragraph question
• The Summary Statistics and Class Statistics reports have been combined into a single Comparison Statistics report. It allows instructors to compare students by summary statistics or by question.
• A new column that displays the median score for each question has been added to the two new reports.

Two new options have been added to theStudent Scoresection of theEdit Assessment Propertiesscreen:

• Release the score after the availability period has ended.
• Release the score after the availability period has ended and all of the questions have beengraded.

• New Group E-mail Options:There is nowthe ability to send mail to users by role or by group affiliation.
• Enhanced My Grades Area:Instructors can now provide students with more information in the My Grades area. For example, they can release Grade Book column statistics to give students a better idea of their performance relative to the class. Instructors can also choose to have their comments on an assignment or assessment appear in the My Grades area.
• Easier Course Customization:The color palette has been extended and the process of customizing the look-and-feel of a course has been streamlined, making it easier for designers to create the appearance they want for their courses.
• New Web Folder Functionality:Users can nowopen any folder in the File Manager as a Web Folder. Web Folders leverage WebDAV technology, which lets users easily drag and drop files between their desktops and their online course. Users can open Web Folders within the Vista interface, and no set-up is required.
• More Flexible e-Pack Adoption for Faculty:Instructors can import e-Packs into their existing courses without overwriting their own content — giving them the flexibility to add publisher content to their courses at any stage of the course design process. Instructors can easily add e-Pack content to course shells that are automatically created via integration with their institution’s student information system.
• 15-Day Trial e-Pack Access for Students:Students can request temporary access to an e-Pack — allowing them a 15-day window to engage with the course. This simplifies start-of-term administration by letting students view course material prior to purchasing an access code for the course.
• Goals Tool:TheGoalstool allows designers to create, organize, and present the learning goals of the course to theirstudents. Instructors can associate the goals with materials from the course so that students can click anygiven goal to see a list of all course content and activities that will help students attain that goal. TheGoalstool makes it easier for students to understand what’s expected of them and how individualactivities contribute to achieving their competencies.
• Grading Forms:With the newGrading Formstool, instructors can specify multiple grading criteria for a learning activityand define performance levels for each element of the criteria. The instructor or designer can create one ormore grading forms in a course and associate the form with assignments, discussions, orGrade Bookcolumns. Grading forms let instructor provide very clear performance expectations to students, as well asobjective guidelines for any other graders in the course. Grading forms are easy to grade and students getmuch richer insight into their performance — far beyond grades alone.
• Easier to Use Calendar:TheCalendartool has been improved to enhance overall usability. The calendar now includes clearlymarked tabs that make it easier to switch between day, week, or monthly view at any time. Amini-pick-me calendar appears on the right to facilitate navigation in the week and day view. In addition,instructors can now create links to learning modules directly inside the calendar.
• Greater Flexibility in Discussion Management:TheDiscussionstool has been improved to provide instructors more options and flexibility for efficientlymanaging student discussions. Instructors can now change many of the discussion settings midstream. Forexample, an anonymous discussion can be changed to non-anonymous midway through the discussion,making all posts non-anonymous after the cutoff . Instructors can better moderate a discussion topic torestrict students from posting or replying to the specific topic. When creating a gradable discussion topic,instructors can now determine if they want to automatically release the grades to the student.

Active Learning Features

There area wide array of teaching and learningenhancements with a strong focus on new student-centered features designed to promote active learning.Students will have new ways to express themselves, collaborate with peers, contribute to their learningexperience, and take greater ownership over their learning process.

• Student Contributions:TheWeb LinksandMedia Librarytools have been enhanced so that instructors have the option to letstudents contribute to their own Web sites and library entries to the course. For example, students cancontribute relevant articles or share some of their favorite resources. With student contributions, studentsare more engaged and everyone benefits from the collective knowledge in the class.
• Peer Review:The newPeer Reviewfeature in theDiscussionstool allows students to rate one another's posts based oncriteria set by the instructor, promoting active engagement and quality interactions. Instructors can createcustom linear rating scales for students to rate their peers’ posts. Alternatively, instructors can associate aGrading Form with the discussion topic that students can use to provide their peers with richer feedback.Instructors can choose to make ratings anonymous and control whether students see ratings for all postsor only their own posts.
• Class Blogs:Instructors now have the ability to createClass Blogsin theDiscussionstool, giving their students newways of expressing themselves and collaborating with peers online. Students can casually read theirclassmates’ entries or jump into the discussion by posting entries and comments of their own. Blogsprovide a great way for students to stay connected and share ideas.
• Journals:Journals, in theDiscussionstool, provide a private space where students can reflect on their experiences,chronicle their learning, or record their reactions to a class lecture or discussion. Journals are designed sothat instructors can automatically assign a journal to each student and then efficiently review the entriesmade. By changing a setting, student journals can be shared with the rest of the class.
• Roster:All users enrolled in a course can use the newRostertool to view the personal profile (including anoptional photo) of all instructors, teaching assistants, and students enrolled in their class. In addition, theRostertool displays all study groups in the course so that everyone can quickly see who belongs to eachgroup. Students and instructors can share their personal interests and extra-curricular activities with theclass to foster community building and promote social networking.

Course AdministrativeEnhancements

In addition to the teaching andlearning innovations, there areenhancements that improve course management andprovide both instructors and administrators with greater flexibility and efficiencies.

• Improved End-of-Term Processing:Instructors have the ability to reset sections, copy content from one section to another, and more easily assign templates to sections. These functions can be performed by the administrator or by the instructor.
• Retain Grade Book Data for Un-Enrolled Users:Data can be retained in the Grade Book for un-enrolled users. Instructors can choose whether to hide or show that data.
• Date Rollover:With the newDate Rolloverfeature instructors and designers can streamline term-to-term transition byautomatically updating all dates for the items in their course. All content and learning activities, such asassignments, discussion topics, and assessments, can be simultaneously set forward by a specified numberof days. Instructors can then make date adjustments to individual items through a centralized screen thatis easy to navigate.
• Direct Link to Section URL:On the Manage Course page available to Designers and Instructors, the new Direct-Link-to-Section URL will be displayed, under both theTeachandBuildtabs. This allows faculty to provide this link to Students and Administrators.

BlackboardBeyond Tool Integration

• Blackboard Scholar:Blackboard Scholar® is directly integrated within Vista 8,providing access within the Course environment. Scholar is a social bookmarking service customized for education. Social bookmarking is an activity performed over a computer network that allows users to save and categorize a personal collection of bookmarks -- stored or retrievable web pages -- and share them with others. It provides a new way for Students and Instructors to find educational resources on the Web for Courses and research. Furthermore, by storing and sharing associated information with each resource through tags and disciplines, Scholar allows users to evaluate the resources and find the most relevant and reliable.
• SafeAssign:Vista8 features SafeAssign™, a tool that compares submitted Assignments against a set of academic essays to identify areas of overlap. SafeAssign can be used to prevent plagiarism and to create opportunities to help Students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase. SafeAssign draws from several different databases: the Internet, ProQuest©, ABI/Inform© database, institutional document archives, and the Global Reference Database, which includes content submitted into SafeAssign from Blackboard-powered institutions. SafeAssign content must be created itself, and that previously created Assignments cannot be integrated with SafeAssign. SafeAssign is integrated with the Gradebook.

 

 

Learn about Blogs, Journals, and Peer Review >>