The focus of this presentation is to provide a brief overview of the most substantial new features that faculty and staff can expect when Blackboard is upgraded from version 6.3 to 7.1. See the Teaching with Blackboard website at http://www.blackboard.niu.edu for more details.
Welcome to this presentation introducing the new features and tools available in Blackboard 7.1. I’m Jason Rhode, Assistant Director with the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center at Northern Illinois University. The focus of this presentation is to provide a brief overview of the most substantial new features that NIU faculty and staff can expect when Blackboard is upgraded in 2007 from version 6.3 to 7.1. See the Teaching with Blackboard website at www.blackboard.niu.edu for more details concerning this upcoming upgrade. Subsequent tutorials and handouts will address new features in greater depth. While Blackboard undergoes regular updates behind-the-scenes that do not impact the user experience other than improving overall system performance, this particular upgrade includes some substantial new user features and system capabilities that previously have not existed. Therefore, this presentation will seek to mention these new features that NIU faculty and staff can expect to find in Blackboard beginning in version 7.1. These new features will be available in all NIU Blackboard courses and communities.