Can a student on the UMaine Fort Kent campus get access to a class that is offered only on the USM Portland campus? As technology advances at the University of Maine, the answer is increasingly ‘Yes.’ A course developmental tool, Blackboard, has been implemented statewide in the UMS system.
Originally started in 2000, the program continues to expand across UMS campuses. In February 2001, about 13,200 students and faculty used Blackboard. In February 2002, about 23,500 students were using it.
“About 56 percent of the users are from the University of Southern Maine. Blackboard was driven by distant education so that many of the campuses can offer diverse classes to students,” said William W. Wells, associate provost for technology, information systems, and libraries.
The idea is not to use Blackboard as a paperless trail. Instead it allows the faculty and the student to access a wide variety of resources including syllabi, email, and discussion boards.
Students enter their user names and password to log in at www.courses.maine.edu. This must be activated 24 hours before using the Blackboard system. A student cannot enter Blackboard to access a class or receive information unless a class specifically uses it.
“Privacy has been addressed and is built into the system to protect an individual’s identity,” added Jane Danielson, instructional designer of UNET.
While some professors use Blackboard for more than one class, there are currently 583 classes available, with over 300 from the University of Southern Maine alone.
“The popularity of Blackboard will continue to grow. In the future, Blackboard will accompany an integrated management system and the University of Southern Maine will use electronic mail to get in touch with the student,” said Merton Nickerson, director of university computing technologies.
“All professors should use Blackboard to catch up with the 21st century,” added Liza Murphy, history major.
Another Web-based program that is currently available at the university is WebCT. Students can create and manage their own homepages by using the communication tools or monitor a self-test that can’t be accessed by others.
As with Blackboard, a student must be taking a class that uses WebCT before being able to access.
“If all you do is post lecture notes or syllabi, I don’t believe that’s a good use of the power of the web. But I think allowing students to take quizzes or interact with the material makes an awful lot of sense,” said John P. Broida, associate professor of psychology.
Some students feel that Blackboard has slower accessibility than WebCT. In addition, there are concerns about the distant side of these tools.
“It seems impersonal in class discussions and doesn’t take the place of study groups” said Lynn Kreh, English major.