Pre-contract discussion
Ben Younce our
Blackboard sales representative organized a pre-contract conference meeting
with our Saint Mary’s team including:
- CIO
- Director of Instructional Technology (me)
- Director of Network and Systems
- Director of Administrative Computing
- Associate Director for Technology Integration
From Blackboard:
- Ben Younce - Sales Representative,
- Ryan Francus - SaaS Deployment Representative
- Gary Serrino - Solutions Engineer
- Shawn Boom - Vice President, North American Higher Education
The solution engineer, Gary Serrino, answered all of my questions.
Building Blocks
Gary had also reviewed our list of building blocks. He was able to tell us which building blocks would currently work in SaaS using the original experience and which ones would not. For the building blocks that would not work, Gary was able to share with us which ones were obsolete, which ones were replacements with a simpler tool including many of the 3rd party building blocks. Of the 109 building blocks on our production system, Gary was able to give us the status of 105 of them. For the other 4, he offered to test them if I would provide him the war files.
1. Confirming we will be on SaaS Plus - Yes
2. Turning on Communities on our self-hosted production, test, and development servers. Yes
3. Is there a limit on the number of building blocks we can have on SaaS? No
4. In SaaS, course and roster loading and updating – Banner integration
Current practice:
All courses in Banner added 8 weeks prior to start of the semester (Fall semester, same time as Summer)
· Roster for current semester flatfile batch with cURL scripts 5 files,
- course - course
- instructor bio - person
- instructor assign – course membership
- student bio – person
- student assign – course membership
twice a day 12:30 PM and 6:30 PM - Can continue current procedure
- course - course
- instructor bio - person
- instructor assign – course membership
- student bio – person
- student assign – course membership
twice a day 12:30 PM and 6:30 PM - Can continue current procedure
5. CAS integration - Yes
6. GUI access - Yes, will not be able to add building blocks. Support will do that for us.
7. What version of Learn will be run in SaaS? Latest
8. Project plan – review - Blackboard provides a project plan. I do not have to write one but I did so I am using mine.
9. Creating the url - will be a blackboard.com but we can forward to our current url
10. Archiving courses - Currently we keep 5 years worth of course on the system. For the 6th year, courses are batch archived and zip files saved to College server - Blackboard will provide archives
11. From Bb timeline – details for
- Site Provisioning & Project Kick-Off for SaaS Plus Migration
- Migration Strategy/Planning for SaaS Plus Migration
- Client Side Preparations (Customizations, Auth, SIS, etc.)
- Test Migrations (Data Backups, Verifications, Q/A, etc.
12. Required GUI course and training materials - Will have access
13. Testing (pre-prod environment) in SaaS? Yes
14. What am I forgetting? Nothing (wow!)
Building Blocks
Gary had also reviewed our list of building blocks. He was able to tell us which building blocks would currently work in SaaS using the original experience and which ones would not. For the building blocks that would not work, Gary was able to share with us which ones were obsolete, which ones were replacements with a simpler tool including many of the 3rd party building blocks. Of the 109 building blocks on our production system, Gary was able to give us the status of 105 of them. For the other 4, he offered to test them if I would provide him the war files.
The building blocks in question are:
1. Add Users by Role - User Management Tools - not tested, need war file
2. Advanced Group Management - Currently, does not work
3. BbStats - Currently, does not work
4. TurningPoint (Turning Technologies) - need to use LTI
5. Custom RSS Feed Module - not tested, need war file
6. Dub Labs - not tested, need war file
7. Internships.com - dropped by Blackboard.
8. Kaltura - in development
9. MERLOT Search - Currently, does not work
10. Podcasting Extension - not tested, need war file
In addition, we are interested in adding the new building block for:
Top Hat - no information available at the time of the meeting.
*NOTES:
As of the posting of this blog, the following updates are available.
1. Add Users by Role - User Management Tools - not tested, need war file
Saint Mary's has decided not to use
2. Advanced Group Management - Currently, does not work
Saint Mary's has decided not to use
3. BbStats - Currently, does not work Saint Mary's has decided not to use
4. TurningPoint (Turning Technologies) - need to use LTI Saint Mary's has decided not to use
5. Custom RSS Feed Module - not tested, need war file Saint Mary's has decided not to use
6. Dub Labs - not tested, need war file - Now available and is working
7. Internships.com - dropped by Blackboard - Will use weblink
8. Kaltura - in development - Now available and is working
9. MERLOT Search - Currently, does not work - Saint Mary's has decided not to use
10. Podcasting Extension - not tested, need war file - Saint Mary's has decided not to use
11. Top Hat - Now has a SaaS building block and we are testing it.
We will make our move to SaaS in January 2017 using the Original Experience
We will make our move to SaaS in January 2017 using the Original Experience
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