Intuitive, Flexible, and Accessible: Students and Professors Agree on Blackboard
When it came time to find a modern LMS that fit these aims, EDHEC had, according to A. Zuccarelli, two main priorities that they considered essential for a business school: the first, having a proactive team dedicated to prioritising their needs and reflecting them in the platform; and the second, a reliable and adaptive solution with regular updates. “We see the different trends in LMS development, and of course we benchmark all the different solutions on the market,” A. Zuccarelli said. “We work with Blackboard because we found these two priorities.”
A. Zuccarelli also emphasized EDHEC’s values of innovation, student centricity, and diversity, as well as the institution’s vision of implementing a huge investment in AI and data in their next strategic plan in order to offer a personalised and unique experience to students and professors, as key to their decision. “The new developments of Blackboard are aligned with our values and our vision,” she said.
All the development being done by Anthology was a big influence on our decision-making process. We want to stay at the forefront of technology and leverage new tools like AI, so seeing the progress they're continuously making is encouraging for us as an innovative institution wanting to ensure our students have access to cutting edge tools.
Emmanuelle Houet, PiLab Director, EDHEC
In making the transition from the original version of Blackboard, EDHEC started small. In September 2022, they launched online exams in the classroom. From there, the global MBA programme was transitioned, and feedback was gathered from the participants on their experience.
Overall, that feedback was positive: professors found Blackboard’s interface to be simpler to use, and that it allowed them to complete tasks more quickly—something that is critical, as professor workload is quite significant. Students also found Blackboard much easier to use, and felt it was clearer in terms of where to access course content.
Given this success, EDHEC is planning to transition the entire institution in September 2024. To this end, the team from EDHEC’s PiLab, or pedagogical innovation lab, has been working to assist all faculty and staff in Blackboard (Ultra) adoption. There have been workshops over the summer to help users get acclimated to the new LMS, including a “Blackboard Ultra” week in July, which shared specific tips with professors to help them become more comfortable during the upcoming academic year. The same session will be repeated at the beginning of the academic year. There have also been presentations, tutorials, and sandbox environments provided to students to give them the opportunity to familiarise themselves with Blackboard (Ultra).
