Faculty, Students Can Access Multimedia Content Within Their Existing Online Courses
WASHINGTON, July 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB), a global leader in education technology, today announced that it has partnered with Vanderbilt University Library to make their integration for Apple's iTunes( )U application available to the Blackboard client community, providing a popular tool to other institutions looking to support the use of multimedia content in courses.
Vanderbilt has created free, open source access to its recently upgraded iTunes U integration, developed in collaboration with a group of other campuses and consultants from Blackboard and Apple. The integration enables faculty and students to access audio, video and other multimedia content from iTunes U within their existing courses and with their existing logins through the Blackboard Learn((TM)) platform. At Vanderbilt, "public" resources on iTunes U also include campus news, music, sports and special events. All of the content can be downloaded and played on personal computers as well as mobile devices.
A similar application for iTunes U was developed by The College at Brockport, State University of New York (SUNY) and is freely available to all ANGEL Learning institutions (ANGEL was acquired by Blackboard in May).
"We found that an increasing number of faculty wanted to use multimedia in their classes - everything from capturing lectures to developing and sharing multimedia presentations for students," said Cindy Franco, Online Access to Knowledge Manager at Vanderbilt. "We looked at a number of solutions but they all had limitations. Working with iTunes U gave us an efficient way to share content within our existing system and tied to our courses so faculty and students can use it easily."
The announcement was made at BbWorld((R)), the annual meeting of Blackboard's user and developer communities, and coincides with the launch of the Blackboard's Extensions((TM)) Web site. At the site, the new iTunes U integration joins hundreds of free, paid and open source applications built by Blackboard developers, institutions and third parties to extend and enhance the Blackboard platform, as well as a wealth of digital content and multimedia resources made available by Blackboard's content partners. Blackboard clients can now access all active extensions through one portal, allowing users to customize and enhance their learning platform and find solutions to unique problems.
"The Vanderbilt and Brockport applications are representative of the wide range of innovations and developments unique to our community that help Blackboard and ANGEL institutions go farther, faster," said Ray Henderson, President of Blackboard Learn.
