Five constructive steps for Blackboard and the community
As a recap of our three-part series on the Idea Exchange for Blackboard Ultra, there are 6,711 posted ideas to improve the new interface, totaling 92,000+ votes and 14,000+ comments from faculty and staff members around the world, all trying to help their respective institutions to leverage the full potential of Ultra. Sadly, 60% of those posted ideas to improve the system are marked as “Future consideration.” That status means only one thing: they are being placed in a waiting room of unknown size with no set wait time.
Forward to the Future!
I want to be clear that my intention in this post is not to list out problems with the platform for the sake of listing out problems with the platform. Software development is hard, and Blackboard’s roadmaps are built from a number of hard constraints that they are working to manage within. This post is instead aimed at laying out some possible changes that could be made to make the Blackboard Idea Exchange function more like the community has envisioned for it.
For Blackboard
1. Define “Future Consideration” with a real commitment, or retire the status entirely.
The status of “Future Consideration” needs to be clearly defined by Blackboard with real commitments or be retired from the Idea Exchange status categories altogether. Currently “Future Consideration” is used as a catch-all status category that can signify anything from “we intend to consider this in the future” to “we have acknowledged this idea exists.” It is currently ambiguous, which means that the community cannot rely on it, and thus it erodes trust.
Set a maximum time for an idea to be in the status of “Future consideration” (e.g. 24 months) and move it to “Researching” or “Unlikely to implement” with an explanation for the change. Instead of one ambiguous status, create two statuses under “Future consideration” and give the community some sense of how things are being actively monitored versus things in the institutional backlog. Be more honest and move ideas that the team has determined are unlikely to be implemented to the “Unlikely to implement” status.
So long as Blackboard commits to a definition and adheres to it, the status of “Future Consideration” could remain on the system. However, it would need to be developed out with greater specificity and/or Blackboard would need to retire the status entirely.
2. Establish a regular, public-facing Idea Exchange review cadence.
This would also help to establish a regular cadence of engagement with the community. Currently, it feels like all ideas are in a state of limbo, with many seeing movement within weeks, others within months, and then there are those that get no attention at all and are left to stagnate for years. Establishing a clear and transparent process for engagement would do much to counter the perception that the community’s input is being given arbitrary and inadequate attention.
First, we need a workable model for regularly reporting on the current status of submitted ideas. I would suggest a quarterly summary listing the top 20 submitted ideas in the past quarter, indicating their current status, and providing a brief written description of what is keeping an idea from moving forward or an update on the status of an idea that has already been implemented. Such summaries would demonstrate that the submitted ideas are being actively reviewed regularly by the development team.
I have always tried to assume the best intentions for Blackboard staff and the Blackboard users who post to the Idea Exchange threads. The staff that do post to the threads are generally met with gratitude even when the response is just that there is no timeline yet for an item.
3. Create a transparent status for “Ideas Under Active Debate.”
The submitter’s future pipeline of work would look something like this: submitted → researching → planning to implement → delivered. Currently there is a huge gap in this pipeline, i.e. the point in time when an idea is moved from ‘sitting in the queue’ to ‘being seriously evaluated by someone with decision-making authority’. The “Researching” status is the closest we have to this today, but it does not accurately convey this critical piece of information to the submitters.
If Blackboard were to create a new status called “Under Active Review” or “In Roadmap Discussion” they would need to use these status sparingly and only when really under review. However, this status would be a huge step forward in letting the community know that a real conversation is going on with someone who has decision making power about implementing an idea. The current status of “Researching” is good directionally but is far from conveying the information that an idea is currently being seriously evaluated for the next planning cycle.
This increased transparency would also help Blackboard. It would serve to ensure the product team reviews ideas designated as being ‘under active review’.
For the Community
4. Coordinate votes and consolidate ideas before submitting.
This is something we as a community need to do. All of us reading this post are a decentralized, volunteer community. The data shows that coordinating to vote on consolidated versions of ideas already in the Idea Exchange is worth our time. Let me explain why, and then outline how you can help make this happen.
The same core need is often posed as several different ideas. Each of these ideas may have 40 or so votes, but because they are spread out across several ideas that in total add up to 150 votes or so for the same core need, they never quite get to the threshold to get some real attention. If instead these similar ideas spread out across several different postings were consolidated into one idea, then that one idea with 150 votes or so for the same core need would likely get some real attention.
As members of the Blackboard admin community (whether formal or informal), we already have active channels for discussion about the system and various needs at our institutions. Next time a high-priority need surfaces at your institution, consider organizing a campaign to get all your colleagues at that institution to vote for that same need at the Idea Exchange, and explain to them why that need is so important.
5. Comment Threads Should be Held to a Higher Standard Too, Including Blackboard’s.
And yes, I will note that some of the best Idea Exchange threads I have read recently have excellent comments, sharing a workaround, adding some local detail, asking some very pertinent questions, and keeping the discussion alive and on track for far longer than most online forums. But we can do so much better than this.
But, when a Blackboard team member posts to an Idea thread, even just to say that there is no timeline yet, the community should respond in a positive light too. Their acknowledgments of the update could also then add in some new information or context and ask for an update in a specific amount of time. For example: “Thanks for the update. Since this is one of our highest-voted Ideas, could you update this thread by [insert specific date in the future, e.g. in 2 weeks]?” This type of follow-up question is far more likely to get a response than an open-ended comment, and helps to create a paper trail of all activity.
The community has tremendous credibility in aggregate. What we’re describing, documenting, making requests for etc. to support in the Idea Exchange is the business of running classes, and of academic programs, of academic departments. And it affects hundreds of thousands of students. So, yes, this case should be made. What we cannot allow as a community is to allow a few users to turn a collegial and supportive environment into a place of anger and venting frustrations, which helps no one. We should be willing to help police our own community. Flagging posts or comments, publicly and respectfully disagree with ideas and thoughts, but continue respectful conversation with our colleagues.
While it’s possible that the Idea Exchange could be simply another portal for users to submit feature requests and not a means for vendors to absorb users’ frustration without making good use of it, the Idea Exchange has the potential to be something more, something better. The Idea Exchange has the necessary infrastructure to create a meaningful, data-driven feedback loop between the practitioner community of Blackboard users and the Blackboard product teams. What is needed is for the community to hold the vendor up to their end of the partnership and hold them to their commitments in implementing changes.
All I’m asking for is for Blackboard to treat the Idea Exchange like the partnership it could be. Set some clear status definitions, a set of review cycles, and then make sure that the community is properly informed as to why things aren’t moving as well as they’d like. The things that are needed are things that Blackboard can easily commit to. They don’t require Blackboard to promise anything that they cannot deliver.
This concludes the three-part series of posts on the Blackboard Idea Exchange. I hope you found them useful. If not, I’d be happy to hear your thoughts and ideas to include in future posts. Comments are enabled here, for instance, but I’d much rather hear from you in the Blackboard Community. See you there, and at conferences, perhaps.
Technically Yours,
The Blackboard Guru
