A more modern looking Blackboard, 50GB of cloud storage and video conferencing telephones are some of the updates Ohio University’s Office of Information Technology will be rolling out.
OU is upgrading Blackboard to make the program appear to be more like Facebook, said Sean O’Malley, OIT communications director.
Teachers will also be able to write in documents uploaded to the new system.
“(Teachers) won’t have to download students work,” said Kevin Matterson, OIT support specialist. “The PDF or word document will display in their web browser. They can then make comments in the web browser and students can see those comments.”
Faculty members and graduate students will join undergraduate students in the Catmail email service system, said Dave Beauvais, OIT systems administrator.
In addition to upgrades, OIT is introducing new programs and technology to OU.
Panopto, an online video platform, allows teachers to automatically video tape and upload their lectures to Blackboard. The program also makes slideshows searchable by text and allows students to comment and ask questions about the lecture. The function is available now, but professors must enable the service.
A survey service, Qualtrics, is now available to students. Many colleges at OU used Qualtrics before the university acquired a university-wide license, so the software may already be familiar to some students.
“Box,” an online storage service, will be made available to students and teachers in the next 30 to 60 days. The website will allow students to store up to 50GB of data online. It cost the university $340,600 for a three-year contract. It was not clear at press time if those funds were provided by OIT’s budget or elsewhere.
Professors’ open office hours may change for some students thanks to new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones. Teachers might be able to hold nontraditional office hours with internet protocol telephones, which have video cameras built into them.
Students will be able to video chat with teachers from their smartphones, said Mike Elliott, an OU telephone network engineer.
Specialists from OIT demonstrated these services at the annual “What’s New in OIT?” event Wednesday, which attracted so many students and faculty that some were turned away due to overcrowding.
“Change is the name of the IT industry,” O’Malley said. “We were pleased to be able to provide faces for the new services.”
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This article originally ran in print under the headline: "OIT showcases new technology, upgrades"
