Derek Bruff

Fall courses are now available on Brightspace, Vanderbilt’s new course management system. Brightspace can be used to share course resources with students, communicate with students and engage them in discussion, administer quizzes and other assignments, and provide students with feedback on their learning. Faculty are invited to prepare their courses… Read More

The Center for Teaching is excited to announce that Brightspace is now available for instructors planning their summer and fall courses.  Brightspace will replace Blackboard as Vanderbilt’s course management system starting this summer.  The new platform has a modern, responsive design and a number of features that faculty and… Read More

by Derek Bruff, Director, Center for Teaching As we announced last month, Brightspace has been selected as Vanderbilt’s next course management system, replacing Blackboard. I’m writing now to update the campus on the planned implementation timeline, based on what we know as of this writing (February 13th). What… Read More

The Center for Teaching, as the administrative home for Blackboard, is announcing a new Course Availability and Deletion Policy for Blackboard.  This policy, recommended by Vanderbilt’s Blackboard implementation team and approved by the Blackboard Faculty Advisory Committee, is intended to reduce the amount of storage space Vanderbilt purchases… Read More

The CFT, as the administrative home for Blackboard, Vanderbilt’s primary course management system, is conducting an assessment in March to determine the extent to which Blackboard is meeting the needs of campus users. Results of this needs assessment will inform Vanderbilt’s decision to renew its contract with Blackboard, set to… Read More

As the new administrative home for Blackboard, the Center for Teaching (CFT) is excited to announce a number of developments for Vanderbilt’s primary course management system, all part of Vanderbilt’s strategic investment in the use of technology to support student learning. New Features A number of platform upgrades were… Read More

We’re happy to announce that Profile Photos (also known as “avatars”) are now available within Blackboard. Instructors and students can upload a photo to their Blackboard account by following the steps outlined in the Profile Photo guide. Photos will be visible in all of your Blackboard interactions across all… Read More

The CFT has added a new way to access Blackboard support at Vanderbilt. During our drop-in hours, faculty and staff who have Blackboard-related questions can stop by the library area of the CFT (even without an appointment) and find a team of specialists ready to assist. We can get… Read More

On June 6-7, Blackboard will be updated to a more recent version of the system. This update will provide several feature enhancements, but the user interface will be largely unchanged. We are updating from the October 2012 Blackboard release to the April 2014 release. See below for a list… Read More

We’re happy to announce that the Rubrics course tool is now available within Blackboard to instructors. The tool is available by default in new courses. For existing courses, instructors can turn on the tool from the Customization > Tool Availability menu. This tool has been requested by many instructors… Read More