This document provides an agenda and overview for a session on innovation and an institution's teaching and learning roadmap. The agenda includes discussions of the Blackboard Learn 9.1 teaching and learning roadmap, hosting and support updates, next generation cloud deployment, and the next generation Blackboard Learn SaaS with Ultra Experience. The overview sections provide details on the Learn 9.1 release schedule and support cadence, upcoming quality and feature improvements to Learn and Collaborate, and roadmaps for other Blackboard products including the Bb Student app. Customer support statistics are also presented, along with information on countering distributed denial of service attacks.

1. Innovation
and
your
Institution
Teaching
&
Learning
Roadmap
Chris
Ross
– Industry
&
Solutions
Eoin Haluch – Client
Support
Glenn
Philpott – Cloud
Services

2. Session
Agenda
2
Ø Teaching
and
Learning
Roadmap
Ø Hosting
&
Support
Update
Ø Next
Generation
Cloud
Deployment
(SaaS)
Ø Next
Generation
Bb
Learn
SaaS
with
Ultra
Experience
Ø Q&A

4. Teaching
and
Learning
Roadmap
Learn
9.1
Bb
Student
Collaborate
Chris
Ross
Director
Industry
&
Solutions,
APAC

5. Release and Support Cadence for 9.1
Q3
‘15 Q4
‘15 Q1
‘16 Q2
‘16 Q3
‘16
9.1
Oct
2014
9.1
Q4
2015
9.1
Q2
2016
Q4
‘16
Major
release
every
6
months
CU CU CU CU
CU CU CU
CU
More
Cumulative
Updates
(1
per
mo.)
9.1
Q4
2016
CU

6. Quality and Maintenance: CUs and Building Blocks
In Development
“Fix
the
dependency
checking
to
properly
identify
cumulative
updates
and
actually
make
it
impossible
to
deploy
things
in
the
wrong
order
ever
again.”
Technology
support
staff,
Public
university

7. Technology Support
In Development and In Research
Java
8
JDK
Microsoft
SQL
Server
2014

8. New Ultra-style “2016 Theme” for Learn 9.1
Self-Hosted & Managed-Hosted customers
In Development
Conceptual
mock-­‐up
subject
to
change
without
notice

9. Workflow Improvements& Usability
In Research
Conceptual
mock-­‐up
subject
to
change
without
notice

10. Responsive Design for Learn 9.1
In Development
Conceptual
mock-­‐up
subject
to
change
without
notice

11. More for Student Goal Performance Dashboards
In Research
• Enhance
Module
Dashboard
• Improve
Programme
Dashboard
Conceptual
mock-­‐up
subject
to
change
without
notice

12. Enhanced Cloud Profile
• Available
with
Learn
9.1
October
2014
or
later
• Accessible
through
My
Blackboard
Interface
• Profile
provides
for;
• Study
information
• career
objectives
• work
&
project
experience
• language
proficiency
• competency
achievement
• campus
activities/participation
Conceptual
mock-­‐up
subject
to
change
without
notice

13. Collaborate – Redesigned Learn 9.1 Integration
In
Development
13
New
Collaborate
Building
Block
UI
integrated
in
Learn
courses
for
creating
sessions
and
viewing
recordings
Support
for
downloading
recordings
and
telephony
session
settings
Supports
using
Collaborate
Ultra
and
Original
experience
in
same
course
Conceptual
mock-­‐up
subject
to
change
without
notice

14. Collaborate – Leveraging the power of Learn 9.1
In
Research
14
Course
room
and
personal
virtual
office
Learn
gradebook
integration
for
Collaborate
attendance
Assign
Collaborate
breakout
groups
automatically
using
course
group
assignments
Display
scheduled
Collaborate
sessions
in
the
course
calendar

15. Collaborate – Ultra Experience Roadmap
• Firefox
WebRTC Support
• Microphone
Indicators
• Video
“On
Air”
Indicator
• Network
Quality
Indicators
Available
5-­‐‑3
• Persistent
and
pre-­‐loaded
content
• Breakout
Groups
• Deeper
integration
with
Learn
9.1
• Integration
with
Learn
Ultra
Experience
• Instructor
mobile
experience
with
Bb
Instructor
app
• Up
to
250
participants
In
DevelopmentAvailable
Now
• High
quality
audio,
video,
and
app
sharing
• Room
and
Moderator
Chat
• Annotate
whiteboard
and
slide
content
• Integrated
Telephony
• Integration
with
Learn,
Moodle,
LTI,
APIs
• Closed
Captioning
&
WCAG
2.0
AA
Support
• MP4
Recordings
• Mobile
experience
with
Bb
Student
app
• Internationalized
scheduling
UI
• Up
to
100
participants
In
Research
• Polling
• Enhanced
Collaborative
Whiteboard
• Native
Session
Recording
/
Playback
• Live
Feedback
• Sign
Language
Interpreter
• Display
Videos
as
Content
• Private
Chat
• Basic
Edit
Recordings
• Up
to
1,000
participants

16. Blackboard
Confidential
Bb
Student
Roadmap
In
Research
Bb
Student
• Collaborate
Ultra
–
Breakout
Rooms
• RTL
Language
Support
• Third-­‐party
content
(PC/SCORM/LTI/App
to
App
Launch
)
• Analytics
&
Telemetry
Bb
Instructor
• UPDATE:
iOS,
Android
tablet;
to
replace
Bb
Grader
In
Development
Bb
Student
• Collaborate
Ultra
-­‐
Join
from
Course
• Push
Notifications
• Discussions
Discussions Push
Notifications

17. Blackboard
Confidential
Bb
Collaborate
Roadmap
• Persistent
and
pre-­‐
loaded
content
• Breakout
Groups
• Deeper
integration
with
Learn
9.1
• Integration
with
Learn
Ultra
Experience
• Instructor
mobile
experience
with
Bb
Instructor
app
• Up
to
250
participants
In
Development In
Research
• Polling
• Advanced
Collab.
Whiteboard
• Live
Feedback
• Display
Videos
as
Content
• Private
Chat
• Sign
Language
Interpreter
• Native
Session
Recording
/
Playback
• Basic
Edit
Recordings
• Up
to
1,000
participants

18. Support
&
Hosting
Update
Eoin Haluch
Senior
Director
Client
Support,
APAC

19. Customer

20. Customer
Support
201
full
time
staff
31
in
region
2
New
Managers
91%
Client
Satisfaction
49.75%
of
Tickers
Resolved
in
1
Day
85.35%
Resolved
in
7
Days
Expanded
Local
Support

21. Distributed
Denial-­‐‑of-­‐‑Service
Attack
(DDoS)
In
computing,
a
denial-­‐of-­‐service
(DoS)
attack
is
an
attempt
to
make
a
machine
or
network
resource
unavailable
to
its
intended
users,
such
as
to
temporarily
or
indefinitely
interrupt
or
suspend
services
of
a
host
connected
to
the
Internet.
A
distributed
denial-­‐of-­‐service
(DDoS)
is
where
the
attack
source
is
more
than
one–and
often
thousands
of-­‐unique
IP
addresses.
Wikipedia
DDoS
attacks
grew
in
volume
by
132%
year-­‐on-­‐year
in
2015
and
7%
in
Q3
since
the
previous
quarter.
Akamai

22. Countering
DDoS
Attacks
Two
stage
DDoS
Mitigation
Process
1)
ONSITE
Capacity
to
absorb
DDoS
attacks
over
1TB of
DDoS
cleansing
capacity
using
purpose
built
DDoS
mitigation
hardware.
2)
OFFSITE
Global
DDoS
scrubbing
centers
are
fully
redundant
so
that
if
any
scrubbing
center
fails
or
becomes
compromised,
surviving
scrubbing
centers
continue
to
mitigate
attacks.
Fully
managed
by
24x7
3rd
party
SOC
who
implement
latest
countermeasures
and
mitigation
strategies.
• Threat
intelligence
monitored
for
specific
threats
to
Blackboard
infrastructure.
• Malicious
network
traffic
detected
at
scrubbing
centers
worldwide
keeping
attacks
from
congesting
Blackboard
data
centers.

23. Collaborate
-­‐‑ DDoS
In
November
2015
we
experienced
several
DDoS
Attacks:
• No
Blackboard
Learn
environments
experienced
downtime
• Blackboard
Collaborate
suffered
several
service
issues
from
the
30th
Nov
through
to
03rd Dec
• Tiger
Team
created
to
diagnose
and
resolve
• Test
DDoS
activation
end
of
January
• Test
successful,
4
product
issues
identified
and
currently
being
resolved

24. Support
Communication
/
Escalations
Support
Bulletin's
behind.blackboard.com
System
Status
Page
status.blackboard.com
Escalation
#1
supportmanagers@blackboard.com
Escalation
#2
Eoin.Haluch@blackboard.com
02
8031
8008

25. Next
Generation
Cloud
Deployment
Glenn
Philpot
Director
Cloud
Services,
APAC

26. 26

27. AWS
Global
Infrastructure
27

28. Amazon
Service
Levels
&
Certifications
28
• Amazon
now
claims
that
data
stored
in
the
“durable
storage”
class
is
99.999999999%
• Designed
for
99.99%
availability
over
a
given
year
• Durability
=
“If
you
store
10,000
objects
with
us,
on
average
we
may
lose
one
of
them
every
10
million
years
or
so.
This
storage
is
designed
in
such
a
way
that
we
can
sustain
the
concurrent
loss
of
data
in
two
separate
storage
facilities.”
• Amazon
Certifications

29. Blackboard
SaaS
Architecture
29

30. Sizing
and
Scaling
30
Amazon
Web
Services
(AWS)
provides
the
ability
to
scale
in
an
agile
and
flexible
manner.
AWS
has
inherent
features
that
directly
benefit
online
Learning
environments.
• Auto
Scaling
can
be
deployed
to
ensure
the
optimal
number
of
Amazon
EC2
instances.
Auto
Scaling
can
also
automatically
increase
the
number
of
Amazon
EC2
instances
during
demand
spikes
to
maintain
performance
and
decrease
capacity
during
lulls
to
reduce
costs.
• CloudWatch is
a
monitoring
service
for
AWS
cloud
resources
and
the
applications
you
run
on
AWS.
• CloudTrail is
a
web
service
that
records
AWS
API
calls
for
your
AWS
account
and
delivers
log
files
to
an
Amazon
S3
bucket.

31. Disaster
Recovery
31
Amazon
Web
Services
(AWS)
provides
high
availability
through
the
use
of
separate
Regions
and
Availability
Zones.
The
SaaS
offering
of
Learn
is
deployed
in
the
AWS
Asia
Pacific
Region
(in
Australia).
The
Australian
AWS
Region
has
two Availability
Zones.
• Availability
Zones
within
a
region
are
managed
on
physically
isolated
resources
such
that
one
Availability
Zone
can
be
compromised
without
impacting
other
Availability
Zones.

32. Software
as
a
Service
with
CONTROL
32
The
Blackboard
Cloud
SaaS
Platform
allows
complete
control
for;
1)
Upgrades – Institutions
are
in
control
of
when
updates
are
applied.
This
allows
the
institutions
the
ability
to
schedule
testing
and
upgrade
windows
at
the
most
convenient
time.
Also
allowing
the
ability
to
introduce
new
feature
enhancements
/
roadmap
capabilities
only
when
with
the
appropriate
communication
and
training
has
been
delivered.
2)
Enhancements – the
Blackboard
environment
can
be
customisedas
required
by
the
institutions
leveraging
the
Blackboard
extensive
Building
Block
API
framework.
This
provides
the
control
needed
to
tailor
the
instance
to
institutional
needs

33. Three
SaaS
Deployment
Options
• Both
the
Original
&
Ultra
experiences
• Continuous
delivery
of
features
and
functionality
• Flexible
Deployment
Option
available*
• Full
B2
support
• Full
LTI,
web
services,
and
new
REST
API
• Test
instance
included
• Supports
all
Learning
Solutions
Plus
(Available
Now!)
Standard
(Available
Now!)
• Both
the
Original
&
Ultra
experiences
• Continuous
delivery
of
features
and
functionality
• Curated,
certified
set
of
pre-­‐installed
B2s
only
• Full
LTI,
web
services,
and
new
REST
API
• Test
instance
included
• Supports
Learning
Core
and
Learning
Essentials
solutions
only
Advantage
(Available
Now!)
• Both
the
Original
&
Ultra
experiences
• Continuous
delivery
of
features
and
functionality
• Flexible
Deployment
Option
• Full
B2
support
• Full
LTI,
web
services,
and
new
REST
API
• Test
and Staging
instances
included
• Supports
all
Learning
Solutions
• Service
Delivery
Mgmt
• Direct
Data
Access
(OpenDB /
ASR)
*
Update
Support
package
recommended

34. Transition path for existing customers
We’ll
start
planning
with
customers
interested
in
SaaS
during
H2,
2016
Some
customers
may
wish
to
SaaS
by
end
2016.
Bb
staff
carry
out
the
transition
from
MH
infrastructure
to
SaaS
infrastructure
We
think
customers
are
more
likely
to
start
planning
for
transition
in
2017
Customers
interested
in
the
Cloud
should
discuss
with
their
Bb
Account
Manager
Recommended
first
step
is
to
move
to
Managed
Hosting
Once
in
Managed
Hosting,
moving
to
SaaS
at
a
later
stage
is
straightforward
For
SH
customers
interested
in
SaaS
we
recommend
moving
to
Managed
Hosting
in
2016
&
from
there
to
SaaS
in
2017
Managed Hosted Self Hosted

35. Learn
SaaS
with
Ultra
Experience
Chris
Ross
Director
Industry
&
Solutions,
APAC

36. Blackboard
Confidential
Definitions
Original
Experience
Original
Course
2012
Theme
Original
Course
2016
Theme
Original
Experience

37. Blackboard
Confidential
Institutions
decide
if
and
when
to
turn
on
the
Ultra
Experience
on
SaaS

38. Blackboard
Confidential
Definitions
Ultra
Experience
Ultra
Course
Ultra
Experience

39. BLACKBOARD
CONFIDENTIAL
Ultra Experience
Supports both course types. Institutions can
define adoption criteria & timeframe
Ultra
Course
Original
Course
Original
Course

40. Blackboard
Confidential
Learn
with
Ultra
Experience
Technical
Preview
Available
Now
(Technical
Preview)
• Announcements
• Notifications
/
Stream
• Roster
• Course
Content
• OneDrive Integration
• Calendar
• Discussions
• Messages
• Assignments
• Grades
• Basic
Profile
• Analytics
&
Action
• Course
Copy
&
Diagnostics
• Export/Archive
Course
Instructor
view

41. Blackboard
Confidential
Educator
Preview
In
Development

42. Blackboard
Confidential
Learn
with
Ultra
Experience
Roadmap
In
Research
• Institution
Page
• Learning
Outcomes
• Locale
and
Language
Selection
In
Development
• Graded
Discussions
• Tests
• Rubrics
• Group
Management
• Rich
Pages
• Integration
Framework
(Publishers,
LTI,
REST
APIs)
• Learner
Risk
&
Activity
Analysis
• Educator
Preview