Blackboard Announces Updates for Web Conferencing Platform

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• Publié par: blackboard-inc-pr
• Nombre de lectures: 12
• Langue: English

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Blackboard Announces Updates for Web

Conferencing Platform

PR Newswire

NEW ORLEANS, July 10, 2012

-

Blackboard Collaborate 12 Adds Mobile Support, User Improvements and LMS

Integrations

NEW ORLEANS

,

July 10, 2012

/PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard Inc. today announced

updates to its Web conferencing platform with the release of Blackboard

Collaborate™ 12. With the new version, Blackboard Collaborate adds enhanced

integrations for leading learning management systems (LMS), user experience

improvements that make the system easier to use and more accessible, and

plans to add support for mobile access.

The release plans to support an interactive mobile application, Blackboard

Collaborate Mobile,scheduled to be available later this summer. The app would

allow students to join live sessions from an iPad™ or iPhone® through a link in

the LMS, an email or calendar invite that recognizes their device and

credentials automatically. Through the app, students would view presentations

and whiteboard activity, communicate through chat and audio, and even raise

a hand to request attention from the instructor. Instructors would be able to

see who is attending the session on mobile devices and assign grades for

attending live sessions or viewing recorded ones.

"Everything in our society is going mobile and we believe that education needs

to do the same," said Mark Gensimore, vice president of business and

professional development at blendedschools.net. "Blackboard Collaborate

Mobile is an essential piece of that puzzle for us."

A number of user experience improvements also come with the release, many

of which were driven by feedback from clients. In a significant update, echo

cancellation eliminates the need for the use of specific headsets, making it

easier for anyone to join sessions and saving users and their institutions the

expense of procuring and distributing headsets. The release also improves chat

capabilities and enhances closed captioning to offer more viewing options for

users with disabilities.

"Technology should make education simpler and more accessible, and that's

the focus of this new release," said Maurice Heiblum, president of Blackboard

Collaborate. "We are continually focused on bringing innovation that helps

users interact more easily, whether it's online, through an LMS or on a mobile

device."

The release also updates an integration with

Blackboard Learn

™ 9.1 and brings

a newly certified integration with joule, the Moodle-based LMS offering from

Moodlerooms. With the Blackboard Learn integration, grades assigned to

sessions are automatically updated in the LMS gradebook, and users can join

sessions directly from their calendars with one click. Institutional hierarchy

support also allows multiple administrators to be named across enterprise-wide

deployments.

"The development of the latest version of Blackboard Collaborate was a true

partnership in interface design between the institutions in the product advisory

council and Blackboard," said Robin M. Smith, Ph.D., associate professor and

coordinator of eLearning at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

"Our ideas and requests became visible before our eyes, week by week, as the

product unfolded. We were able to prioritize needs for the product based on a

wide variety of user experiences from many institutions."

The announcement was made at Blackboard Collaborate Connections Summit

being held this week in

New Orleans

as part of

BbWorld

®, Blackboard's annual

user conference.

Blackboard Collaborate platform's Web conferencing, mobile collaboration,

enterprise instant messaging, and voice authoring technologies are used by

thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate and government

organizations worldwide.

Blackboard Collaborate 12 and the integration for Blackboard Learn are

available today. Current customers can upgrade at no extra cost. Blackboard

Collaborate Mobile is planned to be available later this summer to enterprise

customers using Blackboard Collaborate 12. Initial applications for the iPad®

and iPhone®will be free for users to download.

To learn more about Blackboard Collaborate

,

please visit

www.blackboard.com/collaborate.

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative

solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners

around the world every day. Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher

education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to

extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security,

and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997,

Blackboard is headquartered in

Washington, D.C.

, with offices in

North America

,

Europe

,

Asia

and

Australia

.

Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and

prospects for Blackboard represent the Company's views as of the date of this

press release. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various

important factors. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and

developments will cause the Company's views to change. However, while the

Company may elect to update these statements at some point in the future,

the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. Statements

regarding Blackboard's product development initiatives, including new products

and future product upgrades, updates or enhancements represent

Blackboard's current intentions, but may be modified, delayed or abandoned

without prior notice and there is no assurance that such offering, upgrades,

updates or functionality will become available unless and until they have been

made generally available.

iPhone and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.