We Listen
Business eLearning values feedback on the services they provide and the products they support. Where possible, we like to respond to student feedback to show that we listen.
Responses to feedback given in the 2009 Graduates Survey
A survey of graduates completing their studies in Semester 2 2009 was conducted by the Business School. Although the survey's scope was primarily geared towards our graduates' career expectations, some general feedback was sought on their use of Blackboard. 447 graduates responded to survey. Overall, 86% of them indicated that they used Blackboard daily (55%) or at least 3 times a week (31%). Brief, positive comments included:
- 'Blackboard was easy to navigate and well used by my tutors and lecturers.'
- 'Blackboard is very good, we can download materials online ourselves. Especially the discussion [boards], where we can ask any questions.'
- 'excellent.'
Other comments
- 'For Blackboard, the main problem is the attitude of certain staff members (lecturers and tutors alike) who either refuse to provide good content via Blackboard or do not use online channels as effectively as they could if they were more enthusiastic (less lazy).'
Students can feel their online learning experience has been inconsistent when some Units use Blackboard heavily and others do not. We work with academic developers and program directors to embed eLearning into programs, plus all Blackboard sites have core information posted such as Unit of Study outlines and lecture notes. It could also be that some Unit of Study content and learning outcomes are better achieved and delivered using alternate methods to online delivery. - 'I just wished every teacher would give all the grades he attributed to us on blackboard. Because most of the time, teachers just give a few grades and then the total unit grade but we keep wondering about the other grades in the meantime. Are teachers too lazy to give us the details of all our grades on blackboard?'
In the Business School, academics are meant to be posting all interim grades on Blackboard. The exception is your final mark and grade which has to be sent to you from the University. This is not something we monitor, however we are constantly helping academics set up the grade tool so students can view their results. - 'I'm not satisfied with that all information and communications of the current courses on blackboard would be deleted once the semester finishes. I reckon the blackboard should keep the course information on, so we can have a clear whole review of what we've done for the degree.'
Blackboard courses and enrolments are automatically populated from the University databases, which means access to information and courses changes with each semester and you can only access materials for courses you are currently enrolled in. When semester finishes, academics can also make the site unavailable to students at their discretion. Although there may be a small period of overlap before either of the above options takes place, we recommend downloading information and content you would like to keep. - 'There should be discussion boards for every subject.'
Student surveys consistently demonstrate the popularity of Discussion boards with students. We do have a default Discussion Board built into the Blackboard template all Blackboard sites use, but it is at the lecturer's discretion whether or not to use it. Due to student response use of Discussion boards has substantially increased across the faculty over the past few years.
Further feedback
Further feedback about the Business School eLearning facilities is always welcome. Please email your feedback to Business eLearning.