What your users use: detailed

insight made possible by Eesysoft

Jeroen ten Haaf PhDBlackboard CoordinatorE-learning Project ManagerMaastricht University

ABOUT JEROEN

Jeroen ten Haaf PhDBlackboard CoordinatorE-learning Project ManagerMaastricht UniversityJa.tenhaaf@maastrichtuniversity.nl

I have used Blackboard for 9 years

This Sunday I will swap from Blackboard courses to golf courses

• Founded 1974: 6 faculties (including academic hospital), rank #6 in top of young universities worldwide

• 16.000 students, 2500 teaching staff• Problem Based Learning (PBL) paradigm,

adopted from MacMaster (Canada)

Maastricht University

FUNCTIONAL SUPPORT

AntoinetteVesseur

DannyEijpe

Maartenvan Wesel

APPLICATION SUPPORT

HansMaessen

IvoKruchten

NoëlJaminon

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

MarcoGorissen

RezyDiederen

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Problem Based Learning (PBL), from the start 1974

• Courses (6 – 8 weeks) 50 – 400 students; divided in small groups: 15 stu dents work together on a practical or academic problem (case)

• Because cases are about real life, learning activities and experience are multidisciplinary in character

• Close contact between students and staff: interaction, collaboration, report meetings (twice a week obligatory), projects, occasions

• Self-study (preparing for the next group meeting, writing a paper, completing an assignment, etc.)

• Student-centered approach: teachers are there to help students along, but students are in charge of their own learning process:

• Students find out and develop their favorite learning style(s) <

Maastricht University

1. Intrinsic driver: need of support improvement / management reports

• Use of Blackboard in general user-data BB database

• Use of tools in different faculties, courses ??

• Technology Adoption: which teachers make use (and which not) of certain functionalities and why ??

• Context support, context notifications ??

• Student performance (students) BB analytics, retention center

2. Extrinsic: critical attitude towards VLE at UM: project “VLE in future perspective”

• Student interviews & inquiries ?

• Teacher interviews ?

• Management opinions ?

STARTING POINT

Inventory• Student interviews & inquiries

• “Teachers have no or very poor IT-skills”

• “Most courses are a mess, we want uniform basic structure”

• “Blackboard is indispensible”…

• Teacher interviews

• “I don’t know which tools are available for my scenarios”

• “If I know there is a tool, I don’t know how to use it”

• “Blackboard is indispensible”…

• Management opinions

• “My teachers don’t use Blackboard”

• High costs: “how much and how is this thing used?”

WHAT WE DID I

Method• Eesysoft Analytics• Eesysoft Messaging

• http://support.eesysoft.com/index.jsp

WHAT WE DID II

Tracks user activity on an individual user level. The standard configuration of the building block provides the following user information:User IDusernameemailfullnameInstitutionRole (primary / secondary)DepartementCity, CountryRolesLocale/language

With individual customers list can be restricted / extended

EESY ANALYTICS

• Logins: each time a user logs in (time/date stamp, user ID)

• Number of active users: by monitoring individual user logins, information is provided about the number of active users during a specific period

• Session time

• User Activity: Each activity a user performs is monitored. This could be navigating to a specific page (‘page refresh’) and/or clicking in/on a specific field, button, link

• This means EesyAnalytics understands WHO is active WHERE and WHEN

• Eesysoft does NOT monitor WHAT the content is of an interaction <

EESY ANALYTICS

Reports: see http://unimaas.eesysoft.nl

Discussion threads

Safe assign submissions <

EESY ANALYTICS

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• General system messages: Blackboard portal login page

1. Specific message for a small group of users only if they perform a specific action?

2. We have tons of information how to use Blackboard tools

• Blackboard manuals• Own support blog• Information from elsewhere..• … But how do we get the right and specific information

(and nothing else) to the user at the moment she/he is in need for it?

EESY MESSAGING

• Specific message for a small group of users only if they perform a specific action:Due to our customised course content creation procedure, teachers should not select Course Settings during course copy…

• > eleum.unimaas.nl > ja.tenhaaf > example course

EESY MESSAGING

• General system messages: Blackboard portal login page• Specific message for a small group of users only if they

perform a specific action?• We have tons of information how to use Blackboard tools

• Blackboard manuals• Own support blog• Information from elsewhere..

• … But how do we get the right and specific information (and nothing else) to the user at the moment she/he is in need for it?

EESY MESSAGING

• how do we get the right and specific information (and nothing else) to the user at the moment she/he is in need for it?

• > eleumaccept.unimaas.nl > ja.tenhaaf > global perspectives >

EESY MESSAGING

SOME CONCLUSIONS

1. Faculty are not sheep. They are a highly diverse group, ill suited to one-size-fits-all instruction. By using Eesysoft (analytics as well as messaging) we are able now to identify client needs and to offer efficient custom support

2. From tool-centered support to client centered support

3. Issue related, specific information dissemination (specific messaging)

4. University Board and Faculty Deans are very satisfied with true data,

1. Support or falsify opinions, bringing nuances

5. Acceptance for Improvement program VLE1. Blackboard back to basics

2. Customised specialties

FUTURE PLANS

1. Integral activity monitoring

2. Filter on departments (faculties), courses, subgroups (high – medium – low activity), individuals

3. Scenario driven

4. Adoption of techniques by teaching staff

5. Context support for all users

THANK YOU!

Jeroen ten Haaf PhDBlackboard CoordinatorE-learning Project ManagerMaastricht Universityja.tenhaaf@maastrichtuniversity.nl