learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Using Courseware for More Than Courses: You May
Already Hold the Lease on a Versatile Virtual Meeting
Space
Karen Hughes Miller 1 and Linda Leake 2
1
University of Louisville School of Medicine, USA
2
University of Louisville Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning
Louisville Kentucky, USA
Karen.miller@louisville.edu
Laleak01@louisville.edu
Abstract: The University of Louisville (Kentucky, USA) is a large, urban institution on three separate campuses
that includes undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools such as education, business, medicine, law, and
engineering. The institution also offers staff/faculty development opportunities, corporate learning, and life-long
learning for the community as a whole. Blackboard is our online course platform and every section of every
course (face-to-face, online, and blended) is automatically issued a course site to be used at the discretion of the
instructor. A few years ago, those of us who teach online realized that the “organizations” option in Blackboard
had far more potential for student, faculty, and staff support than we were using. The “organizations” option
provides a virtual meeting space that can be used to facilitate discussions, share documents, administer events,
conduct quizzes and surveys, broadcast e-mails, link to media, wikis, and blogs, and track the type and
frequency of activities by each participant. While none of these capabilities are unique to BlackBoard, what is
unique is that in BlackBoard these capabilities are bundled so users have access to all capabilities in a
controlled (password protected) environment. The two critical differences between “organization” sites and
traditional “course” sites are (1) once an organization leader has been designated, the leader controls who may
log into the site and the role they play; and (2) organization sites are not time-bound by the academic calendar.
Admission to traditional course sites are limited by administrators to include only faculty assigned to the course
and students enrolled in the course and the site usually expires at the end of the term, semester, or quarter. In
Blackboard, organization sites have all of the functionality of course sites without the two major limitations;
therefore we could use our imaginations, and either apply the functions as they were intended or repurpose them
to meet other needs. The purpose of this paper is to share five brief case studies that illustrate the range of uses
to which we have applied the BlackBoard organizations option to support students, faculty, and staff in hopes
that these ideas may be transferable to other institutions. Each case shows at least one unique application.
Although there are a few technical limitations to Blackboard organization sites, in general the benefits outweigh
the limitations. We argue that when an institution uses fewer types of platforms (or other software packages);
they reduce training time for developers and users and maximize the value delivered by the learning platform
provider. Using a platform provided thru central administration also reduces costs to individual schools,
departments, and programs as they need not purchase additional software to support their unique needs.
Organizational learning also increases as departments learn from each other’s examples of how the
organizations option can be applied.
Keywords: non-traditional applications of learning platforms; student, faculty, staff support
1. Case Study #1: Supporting a large interdisciplinary student learning event
on a health sciences campus
As the population of the USA becomes more racially and ethnically diverse, students in the health
professions need more instruction to increase their cultural competency. Whether they plan to practice
medicine or dentistry, they will not be able to deliver successful healthcare if they do not understand
their patient’s cultural and/or religious frame-of-reference relating to health and wellness (Bonder,
Martin, and Miracle, 2001; Mott, 2003). For the past five years, a half-day workshop has been offered
on the University of Louisville Health Sciences Campus (U of L HSC) on Increasing Cultural
Competence. The workshop is designed much like a professional conference with plenary sessions
and breakout sessions that learners may select according to their interests. First year students from
medicine, dentistry, and dental hygiene along with first year dental residents and first year audiology
students are required to attend. To justify the instructional time and the budget dedicated to this
annual event, it has been important to measure learning outcomes. For the past several years,
students have completed pre- and post- attitude and knowledge surveys to ensure that they are
benefiting from the instruction.
A Blackboard organization is created each year to manage enrollment, session selection, learner
satisfaction, and share background information and bios of the various speakers. The process begins
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