There has been a slight change in policy here in eLearning, which will affect the date that Blackboard course shells are made available to faculty each quarter. Our team has studied the reasoning behind the original model and the technical aspects involved, and we’ve come to the conclusion that an earlier shell build date would be worth trying since this would greatly benefit our faculty. The goal is to make the upcoming quarter’s shells available to faculty during finals week of the current quarter so that prep work can be done before the quarter break. Students will not be added to the shells until the mid-break enrollments change, as usual. As we assess the process results we may decide to adjust the shell build date policy again. You will see the modification reflected in our Faculty Blackboard Planner page and in Scott Coffie’s Systems Administrator quarterly email announcements as we implement this change, effective immediately.
This is a great idea. It allows me more time to prep for my next quarter.
Thanks.
I’m with Arlo! This means that spring break is spring break.
If we have to go back to the former system, we could have online courses available to students by noon of the second day of classes. That would give us the first day of classes to load up the shell and prepare it.
Don’t worry – if possible, we’d be making the shells available even sooner.