Streamlining Content Development in Blackboard with the AI Design Assistant

Building Powerful Learning Experiences for the Modern Workforce

Bellevue University, with its decades of experience in online instruction, has a strong organizational emphasis on partnership between instructional designers and faculty, and a well-established process for building, updating, and delivering quality online degree programs.   

But with an aggressive course development timeline for its Workplace Learning Portfolio designed for employees of partner companies and plans to release new courses every quarter, the existing workflow needed to be updated and made more efficient than ever. Accounting for adult learners of various backgrounds and skill levels, ensuring course content is applicable to current industry standards on an ongoing basis, and balancing theoretical and practical teaching pedagogies meant both subject matter experts and instructional designers would need extra time to collaborate and build modern, engaging, and flexible skills-based materials for these unique courses. 

Leveraging the AI Design Assistant: Reducing a 16-Week Course Build Process to Just Eight Weeks

Recent innovations in generative AI inspired the decision to explore how AI tools could help drive efficiencies in the content development process. As long-time users of Blackboard, the team at Bellevue knew the various AI Design Assistant capabilities were developed to help institutions leverage AI ethically and appropriately, with humans in control and with student outcomes in mind.  

We're not adopting new technologies merely for their own sake or to follow trends, but rather to integrate tools like the AI Design Assistant in ways that genuinely benefit our students. By using these tools, our instructional design team can work more efficiently when creating course content. This allows them to dedicate more time to collaborating with subject matter experts to develop truly meaningful and engaging learning experiences.

Rick Koch, Dean, Design and Development

Introducing the AI Design Assistant into the course-building workflow has greatly reduced the time instructional designers and subject matter experts require to develop content and set up courses for the Workplace Learning Portfolio. 

Previously, instructional designers would work with subject matter experts for six to eight weeks, beginning with customized tutorials to onboard subject matter experts to the course development process. During this time, instructional designers and subject matter experts would dive into the course curriculum and learning outcomes, audit and review existing content, create any new content to align with learning objectives, create assessments and knowledge-checks, review for accessibility and inclusivity, and more. Now with the AI Design Assistant giving instructional designers a head start, this up-front content development time has been reduced to about three weeks, and the entire build schedule for the Workplace Learning Program has gone from 16 weeks long to just eight. 

[With the help of generative AI tools] we’re able to get course content drafted for review sooner and at a higher fidelity than ever before, so it’s been helpful to give subject matter experts the opportunity to not only see content sooner, but in a format that’s very close to the student experience. Now they’re not just reviewing for accuracy and building upon existing content, but we have the bandwidth to partner with them to create more sophisticated and engaging course content for our students and take advantage of the newest content types and features of Blackboard.

Biz Rapp, Senior Instructional Designer, Bellevue University

More Dynamic Learning Experiences for Students

With the additional time afforded to instructional designers who can now engage with faculty and subject matter experts more meaningfully, the skills-based courses being built in Bellevue’s Workplace Learning Portfolio are setting a new precedent for the sophistication and depth of instruction for students.

As instructional designers, we’ve reclaimed time to do what we love: design. We develop new assessments and strengthen the impact and value of learning objects: video simulations, case studies, and resources […] we get to create more dynamic learning experiences and invest time in further research and development that ultimately benefits our students.

Biz Rapp, Senior Instructional Designer, Bellevue University

As Bellevue continues to support the needs of adult learners in both traditional and non-traditional programs, their instructional design team will drive the exploration and evaluation of innovative tools and resources that support engaging and effective educational experiences for their students.

As we implement the new features in Blackboard, we know all of this points to better learning experiences for our students. I never thought I would say this, but our only challenge now with our LMS is keeping pace with all the new features being released and making sure faculty can integrate them into their courses!

Rick Koch, Dean, Design and Development

Looking to provide additional efficiency for your institution’s instructors? Learn more about the AI Design Assistant and access a free trial of Blackboard today.