Previous blog posts have focused on the technical and staff development activity involved in moving to Blackboard 9.1. This time, we thought we’d introduce the teams who are making all this happen. First off is (most of) the team from Learning Services pictured below:
Standing L-R: Peter Beaumont, Carol Chatten, David Callaghan, Lisa Farnworth, Martin Baxter, Meg Juss. Seated L-R: Lindsey Martin, Rachel Bury, Katherine Richardson, Elaine Czotter.
David Callaghan, Mark Ayton and Adrian Cain (both not pictured) have been working extensively with colleagues in IT Services, Academic Registry and Blackboard to ensure that the Student Information Database and Blackboard talk to one another as seamlessly as possible to ensure that the courses and student records in Blackboard are always up-to-date.
Peter, Carol, David, Martin, Lisa, Meg and Adrian have been responsible for training staff in the use of Blackboard, supporting migration from Blackboard CE8 and creating all new guides and resources. To date, they have trained over 400 staff and will continue training and providing support over the summer. They will be joined in late August by Elaine, ICT Staff Development Co-ordinator. Elaine will be responsible for the ongoing training of Administrative staff across the faculties who will be working with Blackboard for the first time.
A special thanks must go to Katherine who has pulled all of the staff training schedules together and created order out of chaos!
Last but not least, Rachel and Lindsey (who have brought you the blog from the days of the VLE Review) who try to ensure that everyone knows what they need to know, when they need to know it, in the format that is most appropriate for them!
The next three months are going to be very busy as we work with the faculties to make sure all their courses are ready for September. We are here to help so please get in touch via the blog or email to any of the team. We look forward to hearing from you …
Our next blog post – Behind the scenes (part 2) will introduce you to our wider team – some of the key staff who we have worked with across the University …