"Difficult, visually repugnant and anti-user-friendly." That is the harsh criticism of Blackboard that Christian Waldstrøm, associate professor at the Department of Business Administration, recently voiced.

Blackboard was implemented at BSS in August last year and replaced both CampusNet and AULA. According to the associate professor, there has been general dissatisfaction at the departments from the former Aarhus School of Business that previously used CampusNet. 

"There has been a great deal of frustration. I haven't talked to one single person who is happier using Blackboard," he says.

But according to the associate professor, the frustrations with Blackboard could have been nipped in the bud if the implementation team and Blackboard support had been more prepared to listen to user criticism.   

"Many of us felt that we’ve been met with a lack of understanding and default answers such as ‘everything new takes time to learn’ and ‘how can you complain when you haven’t even taken the course’, or ‘that’s new to us’ even though several others had contacted them with similar problems," says Christian Waldstrøm.

Solutions on the way after a year

Torben K. Jensen is centre director at the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CUL) which is responsible for the implementation of Blackboard at BSS. He explains that it has been necessary to get the technical part of Blackboard and the integration with STADS (the study administration system, ed.) to function while also compiling support and teaching material before being able to take a closer look at more local adjustments to the user interface.

This work was initiated during the autumn, he says.

“The second phase is about adapting Blackboard to the needs of the various departments. In one location they might think this is the right way to set it up, while that might not be right for another department. And in addition there is the implementation of the many new opportunities in Blackboard."

Since September, CUL has therefore held meetings with user committees from the various departments at BSS.

Christian Waldstrøm is a member of the user committee from the two departments of Business Administration and Economics and Business. They held a meeting with CUL in October and he is happy to have finally met some receptiveness one year after the forced marriage with Blackboard.

"CUL has listened to our complaints and promised that they will do something about them," he says.  

Translated by Peter Lambourne