Home / Learning and Teaching / eLearning / For Students

Blackboard Support 

We Listen

For Students iconeLearning Helpdesk logo

2008 Blackboard Student Survey: Response to Student Feedback

2008 Blackboard Survey Overview
At the end of 2008, 497 students were surveyed about their online experience using Blackboard. The students were a broad mix of undergraduates and postgraduates in a range of degrees. Economics & Business eLearning (from the Faculty's Office of Learning and Teaching in Economics and Business) provides support to Faculty students and staff in their use of Blackboard, and the survey was a means to obtain feedback on our students' use of Blackboard.

The majority of students believed that:

  • The online learning environment was well integrated with face-to-face learning.
  • Resources provided on Blackboard supported their understanding of their units of study.
  • 58% of participants perceived assessment-related features of Blackboard (e.g., MyGrades, Assessment section) to be most important.
  • 42% of participants perceived features & functionality that supported a Unit's learning resources (e.g., online chat, discussion boards, podcasts, wikis) to be most important.

How students use Blackboard:

  • 79% of students sometimes or often use Blackboard to access learning resources
  • 68% of students sometimes or often use Blackboard to access assessment-related information
  • 53% of students sometimes or often use Blackboard to access information about administrative aspects of their unit of study

Student comments about how Blackboard assists their learning

  • "Learning resources, lecture slides and recordings are immeasurably valuable - going over lectures and those that have been missed is so important to understanding. Seeing things in writing and discussing with peers on unclear areas also really helps"
  • "I'm pretty happy with the general ease of use of Blackboard"
  • "Podcasts - ability to take notes at my own pace and leisure"
  • "Discussions can be good to stimulate class discussion in a non-threatening environment"
  • "Grades feedback and clarification of assessments is constructive to the learning experience"

Suggestions from students

  1. Improve learning resource features
    A number of suggestions were made about specific features of Blackboard that lecturers use to share learning resources with students. Many students suggested more links to learning resources and features in Blackboard. Discussion boards, a popular feature of Blackboard, are perceived as difficult to follow as responses are opened on individual pages, and some students wanted discussion boards in more units of study. Short podcast episodes and lecture recordings were well-received by students, and students generally wanted their lecturers to produce more short podcast episodes and lecture recordings.
    Our response: The student user guide on discussion boards shows how you can 'collect' all threads from a discussion forum on one page. The proposed upgrade to Blackboard 9 in December 2009 will provide students with additional functionality in a range of features, including discussion boards. In terms of the number of unit of study sites using these features, the decision ultimately lies with individual lecturers. Support is provided to lecturers on how to use different features, and from semester 2, 2009, a number of Faculty Forums will be run for lecturers to share their use of eLearning, including on how to use discussion boards. The University is rolling-out lecture-recording and podcasting facilities to lecturers from 2009, and the Faculty is supporting this. Economics & Business eLearning further offers lecturers specialist support on using podcasting.

  2. Increase assessment information and feedback
    A number of students would like all units of study to use MyGrades for posting of grades. A small number of students said they had difficulty uploading assignments to Blackboard.
    Our response:     From Summer School 2008, all unit of study sites should be using MyGrades  to post interim assessment results throughout the semester. Faculty educational designers support lecturers in setting up and using MyGrades. As a result of feedback from students, a number of videos and user guides that show students how to upload assignments to Blackboard using a variety of Blackboard assessment features have been developed and are on the Faculty website.

  3. Improve overall unit of study layout/consistency
    A number of students wanted greater use of features in Blackboard in all of their units of study, and commented on the inconsistency of where content is placed between unit of study sites in Blackboard. Some students highlighted that they are sometimes asked to login multiple times as they access different links and areas of Blackboard sites.
    Our response:     All sites are built from a common template that is consistent across the Faculty and lecturers are encouraged to have an introductory announcement that introduces how their site is arranged. Ultimately, the unit coordinator has the ability to customise their Blackboard site. Faculty educational designers work with lecturers to support site design. The library, Faculty and central University systems all run on separate networks, hence sometimes requiring students to login when they access different websites. The Faculty is actively developing a Blackboard's community portal system that should improve navigation from Blackboard to different University resources, for use in 2010.

  4. Add additional features to Blackboard
    Some students thought Blackboard could be improved by introducing other web-based features (such as 25% suggested Google, 16% suggested Facebook, 29% suggested File-sharing), 2% (16 students) thought that Blackboard should remain 'strictly academic': "I think… [adding addition features to Blackboard] would create unnecessary clutter." Other suggested inclusions are a link to the University email system and links to the library.
    Our response:     In 2009 we are introducing Facebook and iPhone applications to Blackboard, and links to other University resources (such as the library and MyUni) will be available with the new Blackboard community system to be used in 2010.

  5. Improve IT Blackboard support
    A small number of students wanted Blackboard to be faster. While many students did not experience any difficulties using Blackboard, some highlighted problems using Firefox to access Blackboard and a weekend outage in September 2008 and other maintenance outages.
    Our response:     While the speed of using Blackboard is dependant on your internet connection and computer, most students (85%) said they have a high-speed connection at home and computer labs are available in the Faculty for student use. Blackboard updates have been performed to correct the problems experienced when using Firefox 3 to access it. The Faculty does not perform any Blackboard maintenance over weekends as this is recognised as an important time for students to access their Blackboard sites. In response to the outage in September 2008, a process has been set up by the Faculty to ensure that similar unplanned outages do not impact students? Blackboard access. Any planned Blackboard maintenance (such as important Blackboard upgrades) will be announced in Blackboard. Students may also check the Faculty's Network Status webpage to check for scheduled outages and maintenance work.

Further feedback

Further feedback about the Faculty's eLearning facilities is always welcome. Please email your feedback to Faculty eLearning.